As the year-end approaches, the annual 'New Year goods competition' is about to begin. Especially, 2024 is the first Spring Festival after the pandemic, so excitement is a must, and gifts for visiting friends and family are even more essential. In this arena, young people, who have purchasing power but are particularly tired of the monotonous traditional New Year goods, are the key to determining whether brands can seize the high ground in the New Year goods market. This year's situation is yet to be determined, but according to the 'New Year Goods China - 2023 JD Super New Year Goods Consumption Trend Report' released by JD Super last year, the young generation represented by the post-90s and post-00s has gradually become the main consumer force, becoming synonymous with 'knowing how to spend wisely.' Data shows that the post-90s and post-00s not only bought the most New Year goods with the least money, averaging 6 items per person, but the search volume for the keyword 'cost-effective New Year goods' exceeded 30 million times. This coincides with the 'low price, high quality' theme that the snack industry has been pursuing over the past year. However, as 'low price, high quality' becomes a consensus among more snack brands, the industry also needs a new way of thinking on how to resonate with young people. Competing to Be the Most Eye-Catching 'Show-Off' From the fact that Three Squirrels, Bestore, and Be&Cheery all chose nut gift boxes as their first recommendation for the New Year goods festival, nuts, as representatives of high-quality snacks, remain the brands' priority pick in the gift category. Slightly different from previous years, against the backdrop of 'price reduction' becoming an overall trend in the consumer industry, brands have begun to attach and emphasize the 'low price' attribute on top of 'high quality.' Three Squirrels, which implemented its 'high-end cost-effectiveness' strategy in 2022, has put the strategy into practice by 'breaking the shackles of a single nut gift box for the New Year goods festival and providing a full range of products across all categories.' Bestore, which recently initiated rolling price cuts, has shouted the slogan 'price reduction without quality reduction' by leveraging supply chain efficiency, lean production improvements, operating cost optimization, and the introduction of gross profit red lines. As mentioned at the beginning, low price and high quality are indeed the golden rule for young people when choosing New Year goods, but when all snack brands appear in the vast consumer ocean with the same label, new tricks are needed to impress them. Therefore, Bestore announced the popular movie 'Creation of the Gods' male lead Yu Shi as its brand ambassador and launched a New Year goods festival IP gift box co-branded with the World Cultural Heritage site Mount Wutai; Be&Cheery announced Bai Jingting as its brand spokesperson and launched three product series: 'Taste of the Year,' 'Nuts as Gifts,' and bulk canned nuts; Three Squirrels held the 'Three Squirrels Talent Alliance Conference and New Year Goods Festival Merchants Conference,' distributing marketing KPIs to influencers. These are just small tricks. For now, Bestore, appearing as the New Year Fortune Officer at Hunan TV's New Year's Eve Gala, has gained a slight advantage in the 'show-off' competition. It's worth noting that Hunan TV, which has high-quality variety shows like 'Divas Hit the Road' and 'Super-Vocal,' is already the most active 'surfing ground' for young people. This directly led to Bestore's first appearance between two top performances by Song Qian and Wang Hedi's 'Roof on Fire' and Cheng Yi's 'In the World of Jianghu + End of the World,' attracting a lot of attention with a real-time viewership rating of 2.7%. Guest Li Xueqin's line, 'Life can't be without TV dramas, just like watching dramas can't be without Bestore's high-quality nut gift boxes,' strongly linked Bestore's high-quality snacks with young people's drama-watching scenes, capturing consumer minds through consumption scenarios. Of course, even if the tricks have expanded to sponsoring large galas, it's still just 'basic operations' in the marketing field. To become the most dazzling show-off, hard strength is also needed. For snack brands to truly stand out from peers and capture young people's attention, they must more precisely reach the needs of the younger generation. Combining the basic need of satisfying taste buds with the emerging emotional needs of Gen Z, an answer is clear: Facing young people who are keen on quality consumption and emotional consumption, brands must not only capture their stomachs but also their hearts. Although they still can't resist the call of high-calorie fast food like 'Crazy Thursday,' it doesn't stop 'greedy' young people from also wanting to maintain health. According to McKinsey survey data, post-90s around 26 to 30 years old have become the true health maintenance force, with over 70% of post-90s young people treating health as a top priority. This is why nuts are prioritized by snack brands in New Year gift boxes, as they are a snack representative that balances deliciousness and health. Be&Cheery and Three Squirrels feature nut series as their main push, and Bestore's 'Liangpin Youfu' gift box series also basically includes high-quality nuts like purple-robed cashews, Australian macadamias, and American almonds in almost every box. Not only is appetite important, but in the current era where snacks are gradually becoming emotional soothers for young people, touching their hearts is equally important. However, it's not easy to emotionally move young people who are already immersed in fast-paced short videos, especially in an era of scarce attention and fragmented information. According to marketing guru Kotler's interpretation, this is when brands need to create a 'wow moment.' Where does the wow moment come from? Only by understanding the culture popular among current consumers, entering their context, and satisfying their curiosity with personality and creativity can brands create products and marketing that interest them. From topics like 'Young people choose to burn incense between work and self-improvement' and 'Choose to pray to Buddha between asking others and asking themselves' trending on hot searches, it's clear that the most common state of young people today is 'anxious while believing in Buddhism.' Based on this, Bestore chose to launch a co-branded collaboration with Mount Wutai, precisely for the symbol of fortune that young people find hard to resist. On the basis of launching special nut gift boxes, Bestore also used the homophones and characteristics of nuts to symbolize fortune, success, harmony, health, and evergreen fortune, paired with 'Fortune Connection' blessing packs from Mount Wutai, such as 'Open the door to welcome fortune,' 'Send fortune when going out,' 'Distribute fortune at work,' and 'Full of fortune,' standing with young people who believe in metaphysics to soothe their anxiety and internal friction. From the trending Weibo topic 'Post-00s young people popularize sending new five blessings in 2024' and consumers jokingly saying 'Bestore has aligned granularity with young people,' Bestore's move is reaping the expected positive feedback. How to Make 'Low Price, High Quality' Sustainable? No matter how dazzling the show-off, it can only serve as the first step to 'attract consumers in.' In an era where user retention is a decisive factor for brands, only by retaining the attracted consumers for a long time can snack brands successfully cross the cycle after surviving the early dividend period of fighting for traffic. Jiang Nanchun, founder of Focus Media, once concluded on how brands can cross the cycle when looking ahead to the 2024 consumer market. He believes, 'When head users are still seeking consumption upgrades, mid-tier users seek quality, and base users seek alternatives, if a brand wants to cross the cycle, it needs to become a 'three-high' product: covering high quality, high brand, and high cost-effectiveness simultaneously, and among them, the power of the brand will become the key to competition in the coming years.' This statement reveals two signals: first, the 'low price, high quality' path that snack brands are currently taking has already hit the key to competition; second, for snack brands to win the market in the coming years, they must continue the 'low price, high quality' strategy. From the attention gained at this stage, after snack brands made targeted changes around 'low price, high quality,' Bestore achieved a temporary victory at the New Year goods festival, which is as important as a final exam. As of now, Bestore's 'Send gifts during festivals, send Liangpin, Liangpin Youfu' has gained over 2.55 billion exposures online, with topics like '#First Dragon Subway in China,' '#Yu Shi Bestore,' and '#Blessings from Mount Wutai' topping hot search lists on social platforms like Douyin and Weibo. Not only heat, but sales also far exceeded expectations. Among them, Bestore's group purchase channel New Year goods standard gift boxes were sold out on January 15, 15 days ahead of schedule, with sales increasing 115% year-on-year; during the Douyin Super Brand Day event, it ranked TOP1 in industry brand sales for three consecutive days. So, what about the future? How can 'low price, high quality' be maintained to defend the advantage? Admittedly, long before the 'low price' trend driven by rational consumption, snack brands had already established a consensus on high quality. Whether it's Three Squirrels, Bestore, or Be&Cheery, to ensure product quality, they have all set up strict quality inspection procedures, including but not limited to raw material screening, production process monitoring, and finished product inspection. However, when 'low price' is added as a new attribute, these measures are clearly no longer sufficient. As economist Martin Christopher said, 'The real competition is not between enterprises, but between supply chains.' The essence behind wanting both good quality and low price is actually placing higher demands on the brand's supply chain capabilities. So we can see that Three Squirrels, which previously chose OEM, has begun to independently build nut category demonstration factories, co-founded a factory with Fortune 500 company Olam International to produce cashews, and established deep cooperation with Ocean Spray, the world's largest cranberry brand. This not only enhances Three Squirrels' voice in the supply chain but also effectively ensures the birth of high-quality products. Data shows that Three Squirrels' self-produced macadamia nuts have a bad nut rate reduced by about 20%, controlled within 2%, and the shell sticking rate reduced from about 20% to 10%. While some brands have finally started building their own factories, others have chosen to follow the trend of digital transformation. Be&Cheery is a representative example. In the past few years, Be&Cheery has increased investment, fully leveraging the role of digital technology in all aspects of the industry chain, including production, sales, and logistics. Direct sourcing from raw material origins ensures product cost-effectiveness, and strategic suppliers must pass AIB audits to ensure product quality. In this way, the brand's pursuit of 'low price, high quality' has been implemented from strategy to reality. Slightly different from the previous two, Bestore's confidence in its supply chain stems from the deep links it has forged with its suppliers. Through years of cooperation, by continuously improving the capabilities and quality systems of factories, Bestore and its suppliers have long reached a tacit understanding of 'ensuring product quality,' which not only supports Bestore's ambition to build a high-quality snack kingdom but also lays the foundation for the brand to occupy the consumer mindset of 'low price, high quality.' When all brands are focusing on the supply chain, the brand that does it more extremely is often more likely to become the ultimate winner. To compress supply chain costs, Bestore chose to replace aluminum foil with transparent high-barrier plastic, without affecting shelf life and taste, directly reducing logistics carton costs by 18.4% for the 2023 New Year goods festival, and it is expected to save another 8.62 million yuan in 2024. It's not hard to see that Bestore has taken a small but decisive step. And this will surely win it a bigger advantage. Conclusion In the past few years, complaints about 'lack of New Year flavor' during the Spring Festival have often been heard, many from young people. Compared to their childhood expectations of new clothes and New Year's Eve dinner, after being 'beaten' by society, their happiness threshold has already risen. So, in the most festive New Year gifts, brands also need to show more sincerity. From the heat of Bestore's New Year goods festival, it's clear that young people are never hard to 'please'; it's just a matter of whether brands are willing to 'exchange sincerity for sincerity.' And under the positive trend of ensuring the sustainability of 'low price, high quality,' Bestore's future will also gain more certainty in growth confidence. PS: From March 14-16, 2024, the 9th China FMCG Innovation Conference, co-hosted by New Distribution and jointly organized by Anneng Zhilian, along with the 2nd China FMCG Hard Discount Conference and the 2nd China FMCG Distributor Conference, will be grandly held in Chengdu! The 2nd China FMCG Distributor Conference will be co-hosted by New Distribution and Zhoupu Data. This conference will focus on the theme 'Supply Chain Revolution' over 3 days, with one main forum, one China FMCG Hard Discount Conference, one China FMCG Distributor Conference, more than ten sub-forums and closed-door exchange sessions, and the first major debut of the [Extreme Supply Chain] Brand Factory Direct Procurement Fair. It will gather thousands of FMCG brand owners, distributors, retail transformers, and industry service providers from across the country in Chengdu for continuous brainstorming to discuss the challenges and opportunities, changes, and ways out in the era of supply chain revolution. In this era of supply chain revolution, a new business era will be born. We hope every participant will still have a place in this wave, and we believe this will be a worthwhile meeting! 🔺Scan for ticket inquiries🔺