---
title: "We Studied 20+ New Sparkling Water Products at Home and Abroad, and You Can Forget About Genki Forest"
description: "This summer, Genki Forest has become incredibly popular, with over 12.3 million search results on Baidu, 1.18 million Weibo posts, and 20,000+ Xiaohongshu notes. The carbonated beverage market has finally seen new life, as traditional carbonated drinks have been declining due to health concerns. This article analyzes why Genki Forest succeeded, explores the booming sparkling water market, and discusses the potential for new brands to innovate beyond the standard formula."
author: "胖鲸研究所"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-09-11"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/we-studied-20-new-sparkling-water-products-at-home-and-abroad-and-you-ca-86ac3a14/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/we-studied-20-new-sparkling-water-products-at-home-and-abroad-and-you-ca-86ac3a14.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0B02uYMjHCZyQdrBw-pP3Q"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC%E7%A0%94%E7%A9%B6%E4%BA%86%E5%9B%BD%E5%86%85%E5%A4%9620-%E6%B0%94%E6%B3%A1%E6%B0%B4%E6%96%B0%E5%93%81-%E5%A4%A7%E5%AE%B6%E5%8F%AF%E4%BB%A5%E5%BF%98%E8%AE%B0%E5%85%83%E6%B0%94%E6%A3%AE%E6%9E%97-86ac3a14.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/we-studied-20-new-sparkling-water-products-at-home-and-abroad-and-you-ca-86ac3a14/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# We Studied 20+ New Sparkling Water Products at Home and Abroad, and You Can Forget About Genki Forest

> This summer, Genki Forest has become incredibly popular, with over 12.3 million search results on Baidu, 1.18 million Weibo posts, and 20,000+ Xiaohongshu notes. The carbonated beverage market has finally seen new life, as traditional carbonated drinks have been declining due to health concerns. This article analyzes why Genki Forest succeeded, explores the booming sparkling water market, and discusses the potential for new brands to innovate beyond the standard formula.

This summer, how popular is Genki Forest? **Baidu search results for Genki Forest exceed 12.3 million; Weibo posts about Genki Forest exceed 1.18 million; Xiaohongshu notes about Genki Forest exceed 20,000.**
The carbonated beverage market has finally welcomed new life. Before this, **traditional carbonated beverages have been in a continuous decline because health-conscious consumers have labeled them unhealthy.**

**-01- The "Crazy" Genki Forest – Why Did It Rise Suddenly?**
The beverage market has never been quiet. But the data brought by Genki Forest is stimulating enough: from a valuation of 4 billion RMB in 3 years to 14 billion RMB in 4 years, it has shown many people the explosive power and allure of this market.
According to publicly disclosed data, Genki Forest's 2019 sales are estimated at around 700-800 million RMB. This year, June sales alone are likely to exceed 260 million RMB, and full-year 2020 revenue is expected to be between 2-2.5 billion RMB. Genki Forest is visibly becoming a "crazy" brand, and this craziness is not over yet.
The beverage market has always been a "battleground for every player." Amid fierce competition, why did Genki Forest manage to rise suddenly?
Word cloud of Genki Forest from Weibo data

**People have been making sugar-free drinks all along. Why did Genki Forest become popular?**
With the health-conscious lifestyle trend, sugar-free beverages have long been surging within the industry: Suntory Oolong Tea, Uni-President Chaliwang, Nongfu Spring Oriental Leaf, Tianwo Tea's Tianwojin series, etc., have all made moves. But the sugar-free beverage market has remained lukewarm, with some attributing this to poor taste, making it a niche market. Remember, the pursuit of sweetness is human nature.
Genki Forest uses a more expensive, more natural sweetener called "erythritol" as a sugar substitute. It is said to be a healthy sweetener with an energy coefficient of zero. This entry point combines health and fun, achieving true 0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calorie sugar alcohol, while also achieving a certain balance in taste. The cool, stimulating sensation of bubbles bursting in the mouth, coupled with the slight sweetness, makes a bottle of sparkling water not boring.
"A bottle of healthy water" makes Genki Forest's market positioning safe and foolproof; "a bottle of not-so-boring water" is what unlocked the greater potential of this market.

**Why would people who have never heard of Genki Forest make their first purchase at a convenience store?**
For low-priced items like beverages, consumers usually don't spend much effort choosing; it's more impulse buying. So **channel and packaging become decisive factors for first purchase.**
The consumer profile of convenience store shoppers is: young, open to new things, less price-sensitive, easily influenced by packaging and appearance, and willing to pay for hobbies.
Genki Forest chose a relatively simple packaging style, with the biggest highlight being a large black character "气" (qi, meaning gas) on a white bottle, standing out among the many beverages in supermarkets and convenience stores. The product's selling point is simply six characters: "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories," concise and to the point, helping consumers make quick purchase decisions.
Because of this Japanese-style packaging, Genki Forest has been criticized. It can only be said that this approach is not necessarily the best choice for the brand's success, but rather a safe strategy to attract users to try it for the first time.

**When it comes to Genki Forest, why do young people switch to buying by the case?**
With the sugar-free selling point and offline entry into chain convenience stores like FamilyMart and Bingobox, Genki Forest quickly left a first impression on the "fickle" Gen Z. What makes young people remember and stick with the brand comes more from Genki Forest's online activities.
**Wherever the target audience is, appear there.** It covers major youth "communities" such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Weibo for content operations. On Bilibili, Genki Forest previously sponsored two food documentaries, "The Story of Chuaner" and "Life is a Hotpot."
Recently, it signed Zhang Yuqi as the brand ambassador for its sparkling water, and placed ads in the popular variety show "Sisters Who Make Waves." It also frequently appears in the live-streaming rooms of top influencers like Li Jiaqi, Viya, and Luo Yonghao.
**As a new consumer brand, Genki Forest presents a set of interconnected internet strategies: channel first, entertainment voice, social seeding, and live-stream e-commerce ordering.** In November 2019, media reported that 41% of Genki Forest's sales came from online.
If a beverage can get consumers to buy by the case through live streaming or e-commerce, it cultivates consumption enthusiasm and habits, making the product's repurchase space and brand's down-market potential worth anticipating.
**Genki Forest's explosive popularity is multifaceted, from insight, product, channel, to marketing, all hitting the pace of the new round of consumption upgrade.** Many media and articles have deconstructed its strategy. At the same time, more people are trying to find: the bigger market has been pried open, where is the next Genki Forest?

**-02- The Ignited Sparkling Water Market – Only Rapid Reproduction of Similar Competitors?**
For the Chinese beverage market, **a rapidly growing brand actually brings out a category.** Sparkling water, as a type of carbonated beverage, has become a bright spot in the global carbonated beverage market fluctuations in recent years. Under the guidance of "health correctness," carbonated beverages have been on a downward trend for several consecutive years, but the emergence of new sugar-free, calorie-free carbonated beverages like sparkling water and soda water has brought drama to the declining curve.
Globally, flavored sparkling water has been a popular beverage category in recent years. Coca-Cola launched a new sparkling water brand AHA in November last year; Pepsi, in addition to its sparkling water brand Bubly, acquired SodaStream, a home sparkling water machine maker; Japan's Suntory Lucozade Ribena launched a new fruit-flavored sparkling sub-brand Lucozade Revive.
A few years ago, the Chinese sparkling water market was basically in the stage of being enlightened by foreign brands like Perrier, San Pellegrino, and VOSS. Now, under the Genki Forest effect, sparkling water has become the latest "big single product" and hottest "trend" in China's beverage industry, especially flavored sparkling water that pursues better taste.
Previously, traditional giants like Nestlé and Nongfu Spring have successively launched sparkling water products; Starbucks, Yili, Tsingtao Beer, Yanjing Beer, Be & Cheery, and other beverage-related brands have also entered the sparkling water market; Beiyang, Hankow No.2 Factory, and other replica soda brands have launched sugar-free sparkling water; and there are also startups like Genki Forest, such as Feisu's "O2+" sparkling water and Yueji Weilai's "Qingqi" sparkling water.
In July 2020, internet-famous brand Heytea launched its sparkling water product line, which media called "Genki Forest's fiercest rival." Also主打 0 sugar, 0 fat sparkling water, on the first day of sale, Heytea sparkling water was sold in Viya's live-streaming room, with 300,000 bottles and 25,000 boxes sold out in seconds.
At the same time, Jianlibao, which OEMs for Genki Forest, and Yanzhong, which OEMs for Heytea, have also launched their own 0 sucrose sparkling water products. "OEM" has become a learning path for such companies to strike at the right time. Some local beverage brands are also racing to capture this market, such as Youyang Beverages and Zhongwo Beverages from Henan.
Genki Forest spent more than 3 years educating the Chinese "sugar-free sparkling water" market and established a set of business paradigms. Stepping back, sparkling water is actually a category with a low entry barrier. More small and medium brands' sparkling water products follow Genki Forest's paradigm, whether in formula or packaging.
For example, Beiyang and Heytea's sparkling water also add erythritol as a sweetener and as a selling point; many product packages are mostly white-based with bright colors, highlighting the health and refreshing qualities of sparkling water. Recently, Genki Forest's official WeChat account even "complained" about this: "When these products are placed next to our sparkling water, it's easy to grab the wrong one by accident. It's like playing 'Spot the Difference'."
Image from Genki Forest's WeChat account
Genki Forest is like a catalyst, greatly stimulating the activity of China's sparkling water market. But this activity should not just be a surge in the number of brands and products, but also the richness and diversity of product characteristics. More brands need to find new ways to increase differentiation, break out of the standard paradigm, and continuously explore from packaging, functionality, to brand premium.

**-03- Extending around taste and function, the development space for sparkling water is infinite.**
Regarding sparkling water, economist Song Qinghui once said: "Sparkling water is highly compatible and can be mixed with other beverages, such as juice, alcoholic drinks, coffee, or even coconut water, with more possibilities. The popularity of sparkling water is attributed to Millennials and Gen Z consumers, who prefer high-quality beverages with cool brand aesthetics and relatively low sugar content."
Following the core concept of "health," and extending around taste and function, the development space for sparkling water is infinite.
It's gratifying to see that, compared to small and medium brands, the sparkling water products launched by major manufacturers already have various health selling points. For example, Nestlé's "Pure Life" sparkling water adds vitamin B6, niacin, and other ingredients;
Nongfu Spring's "TOT" sparkling flavored drink creates the first "rice wine + sparkling" bottled beverage in China; Yili launched "Yiran" milk mineral sparkling water, with the core selling point being "milk minerals 100% derived from milk";
Tsingtao Beer once launched "Prince Seaweed Soda Water." Among the many new sparkling water products, these at least have the possibility of being recognized and the basic points for marketing.

**One development direction is to do subtraction: simpler, more authentic.** Pindrift became a star company in the US sparkling water market for this reason. To avoid direct competition with other sparkling waters, Pindrift uses real fruit juice for flavoring, emphasizing the concept of "fresh fruit from the farm," with no sweeteners, no flavors, and only three ingredients: fruit, water, and bubbles.
Aura Bora, a herbal beverage brand from San Francisco, recently launched a line of herbal fruit sparkling water, featuring zero calories, zero sugar, herbal, and non-GMO labels.
Swipe left to see more
VMG's Robin Tsai mentioned that Spindrift redefined the sparkling water category, meeting the primary needs of health-conscious consumers.

**Another direction is to do addition: richer functions, richer scenarios.** Fizzique is a high-protein sparkling water sold in the US, using ProBev whey protein as a raw material, and subdivided into plant protein, collagen, and other products, exploring the post-workout nutritional supplement scenario. Japan's ITO EN launched "1-Day Vitamin," rich in 11 vitamins and iron, becoming a popular sparkling water. Domestic new craft beer brand Panda Brew launched a new low-alcohol sparkling water brand "Chill Qing'er" in April this year, with 3.3% alcohol content, expanding the dining scenario for sparkling water.
Swipe left to see more
People are already fascinated by the taste of bubbles, and the imagination space for "bubbles" has been opened. Not just flavored sparkling water, but every category in the beverage industry can be redone by adding bubbles: sparkling juice, sparkling coffee, sparkling milk... sparkling water that can help lose weight, sparkling water that can replace meals, sparkling water that can nourish health...

**Marketing techniques also need to be upgraded to align with the consumption habits of the new generation of young people.**
From soda to sparkling water, and then to flavored sparkling water, some say sparkling water has advanced to version 3.0. The reason Genki Forest was able to ignite this market is precisely because of its new brand-building methods. Products need to be upgraded, and marketing techniques also need to be upgraded, to align with the consumption habits of the new generation of young people.
Under a complete set of business paradigms, Genki Forest has solidified its role as energetic and healthy in the minds of young people. Looking at the current Chinese sparkling water market, there are not many products with such clear positioning and distinct personality.
Nongfu Spring's "TOT" sparkling water was launched in May this year, with communication leaning more toward Nongfu Spring's existing consumers. Although it officially announced three popular contestants from "Youth With You 2" (Liu Yuxin, Xie Keyin, Yu Shuxin) as spokespersons, so far it hasn't made much noise on the consumer side, and the "rice wine sparkling" concept hasn't stood out, showing no obvious advantage in reaching new consumers.
Even Heytea's sparkling water, which comes from an internet-famous brand and can be said to have its own traffic, was tied to Viya's live stream at launch, attracting significant market and audience attention. Although the product has the "dietary fiber+" label, there haven't been related marketing moves or other sufficiently eye-catching market selling points.

**Now, with competitors rapidly multiplying in the domestic sparkling water track, traditional consumer brands are beginning to awaken and fight back, and new consumer brands are coming on strong, each with their own shortcomings and difficulties. To break through and stand out, "playing together with young people" is essential. Youth and fun should be one of the natural genes of sparkling water.**
Swipe left to see more
In the US market, LaCroix is called "a maverick sparkling water." Since its IPO in 2015, LaCroix has strived to differentiate itself from existing products in concept, taste, and packaging, insisting on a strong 1980s style with neon-colored cans.
LaCroix doesn't advertise on a large scale or invite celebrity endorsements, but instead chooses to become part of consumers' lifestyles. The New York Times once published an article about how the author quit drinking because of LaCroix; it was included in the recommended foods by the healthy recipe brand Whole30 because it contains no artificial additives; it also partnered with the Coachella Music Festival to promote health concepts.
Pepsi's sparkling water brand Bubly, with colorful cans paired with different expressions, and each tab printed with greetings like "hey" and "yo," injects elements that make it an Instagram influencer.
Swipe left to see more
In the Chinese market, there are also some "new" brands engaging in more emotional communication with young people. As a successful case of old soda replica, Hankow No.2 Factory is positioned as retro and guochao (national trend), with 2019 sales reaching 300 million RMB. In May this year, it launched a sub-brand "Zhengqi Workshop," and its sibling brand Parallel Universe also launched a new product – the "Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain" series of fragrance sparkling water.
The "Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain" series is a low-alcohol flavored prepared wine, featuring sugar-free, zero calorie, zero fat. Unlike common fruit-flavored sparkling water, Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain corresponds to four niche flavors: "Original Sparkling Water," "Pine Needle Sweet Basil Tonic Water," "Chili Bergamot Sparkling Water," and "Falernum Sparkling Water," creating the concept of fragrance sparkling water, catering to young people's psychology of trying new things and taking risks.
This summer, Wangshanzha sparkling water also began to emerge. Some say this is a beverage that came out of a barbecue restaurant. The product was originally a homemade drink at a barbecue restaurant. Because of the added bubbles, it differentiates itself from traditional hawthorn drinks. At the same time, it also developed flavors like Wangtaohua (peach blossom) and Wangxingfu (apricot). In addition to the restaurant channel (barbecue, skewers, hotpot), it has also entered supermarkets and convenience stores.
Furthermore, the brand promotes and acquires customers through offline activities like music festivals and brand collaborations, moving from the dining table to the public, becoming known to more young people.

**The younger generation has higher requirements for product concept, aesthetics, and interaction. They prefer products with freshness and social attributes.**
**For most brands that want to carve out a place in the sparkling water market, changing marketing paradigms should be an unavoidable lesson. They need to find the points that can "hit" young people, and also make these points detailed and solid, even integrating them into the lives of young people.**

**-05- What Genki Forest Brings to This Market Is Not "What," but "Why"**
The global craze for sparkling water is just beginning, and there is still much space to develop. Returning to the beginning of the article, perhaps the question "Where is the next Genki Forest?" has already found its answer: **This question is not important. The market doesn't need more "Genki Forests," but that different brand. What Genki Forest brings to latecomers is not "What," but "Why"; not a template, but inspiration.**
The beverage industry is one that never goes out of style and is forever young. Millennials' continuous self-exploration greatly drives the future direction of beverage products. The rise of e-commerce, live streaming, and other channels, as well as the development of social media, are also changing the way brands interact with young people and reshaping the landscape of many industries.
In the past few years, the top five brands in most categories have almost all lost market share, including beverages. People keep saying that the era of uniform big single products is over.
**The market structure is becoming more fragmented and homogenized. The beverage industry may no longer see "phenomenal" products like Coca-Cola, Master Kong Green Tea, or Uni-President Ice Black Tea. Big brands are no longer dominant, and small brands will also have the opportunity to stand in the center of the stage. The dividend of the new generation is here, and any brand has a chance.**
Source: Pangjing Toutiao (ID: pangjing-toutiao) Author: Special Analyst at Pangjing Research Institute, Editor: Daisy


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671