Click on the image for details Click on the image for details Introduction: Recently, Wahaha has been repeatedly criticized, even being labeled as the "Tencent of the beverage industry." Tencent has become one of the top ten global companies by market value, and WeChat has become a national app, yet it still hasn't shed the label of a "copycat product." Uni-President has also been exposed recently: in recent years, they developed six or seven new products, but it seems only Xiaoming Tongxue (Little Ming's Classmate) has good sales, while other new products may not have met company targets (although there may be other reasons). These are benchmark consumer goods companies in China with top-tier brand influence and performance, yet they are all said to be incapable of new product development, even though we still drink their products every day. Is it really that they lack capability? In recent years, product development in the consumer goods industry has been constantly criticized by insiders and outsiders alike. Has the entire Chinese consumer goods industry's product development and marketing capability collectively declined? In my opinion: For food, beverage, and alcohol product development, first, don't think of these products as too high-end, and don't first think about developing a stunning, world-shaking, absolutely amazing product. In an era where food, beverages, and alcohol are daily consumables, but we are no longer starving or thirsty enough to drink beverages just to quench thirst, FMCG has gradually evolved into a carrier for some consumers to express their individuality, emotions, or to vent. So, sometimes, we may load too much or inappropriate expectations onto the products we develop. As the post-80s generation approaches middle age (nearly 40), and the post-90s and post-00s have become the mainstream consumer groups, consumer goods companies indeed have deviations or deficiencies in these aspects. Why are there deviations or deficiencies? Let's continue. Taste remains the most important factor Food, beverages, and alcohol are products that enter the mouth. Many consumer goods companies, possibly influenced by Western product concepts and development philosophies, always tend to elevate products to cultural and social levels during development, such as many beverages carrying intangible culture, most baijiu striving for nobility, and eating certain foods sparking creativity, etc. In fact, just from beverages, the instinctive reaction at the moment of drinking is the most important. This direct perception after drinking = the biggest fact, and it's hard to change this perception and fact. So, often some consumer goods companies come to us with products they think are good, saying how unique, one-of-a-kind, and technologically advanced their products are. If the product's taste itself is not good, or it's hard to change or persuade through some methods, no amount of good consulting or planning will help. Including, some products with poor taste tests, if you desperately do marketing, the product will eventually sell poorly, which is the most common thing. The old consumer research and insight methods no longer work Taiwan's Uni-President originally had many good products, such as Uni-President Iced Black Tea, Iced Green Tea, Uni-President 100 Instant Noodles, etc. Why can't they develop good products now? It is said that Uni-President has a saying that has spread to the outside: now products placed on shelves are just not asked about. And Wahaha's Nutrition Express once reached annual sales of over 20 billion yuan, accounting for half of Wahaha's overall performance. How did it suddenly decline? Is this a product problem? If no one even asks about it, and classic products are no longer selling well, it actually shows that the products are distant from mainstream consumers. As a former product manager at a consumer goods company, comparing the past with the present, I can indeed see that even some international giants and the most leading local consumer goods companies originally relied on third-party research companies, marketing companies, or communication companies for consumer research and insights. In the non-mobile internet era, that was fine, but with the change in relationships and communication methods among people in the mobile era, it may really need to be re-examined. It's not that these third-party companies are bad. In the traditional non-mobile era, information acquisition, dissemination, and cognition were top-down, closed, asymmetric, and one-way, and even ultimately could be subjectively selective. So, there was the saying that perception is greater than fact. So, whatever claims a product made, or whatever cognitive content the company thought consumers should accept, as long as they vigorously persisted in promoting it, consumers would vaguely accept it and pay for it. So, we saw how ACNielsen used to tell companies their research results, how Ogilvy in qualitative research meetings self-righteously thought about what type of consumers and what claims products should have, and how the world's largest custom research company proposed fixed five consumer profiles for consumer positioning, and no one would question it. So, positioning concepts were prevalent, like Wanglaoji herbal tea: "Afraid of getting heaty? Drink it!" No problem, no issue. ...... All these show that consumers did not have consumer sovereignty because information was impossible to be symmetric, so companies said whatever they wanted, and it was hard to trace. So, in the past, when companies did branding, communication, and marketing, they loved to say: Perception is greater than fact! But in the mobile era, the era of consumer sovereignty, why do we talk about experience, scenarios, and look at others' reviews rather than ads? It's because consumer sovereignty has penetrated to a deeper level: recommendations from friends and family, recognition from opinion leaders, and the results of one's own scenario experiences are the reasons for choosing a product, not the perception subjectively told by the company. So, only these can build trust and trigger purchases. And as former product managers, these changes in consumers were somewhat difficult to capture during product development. As a B2B company, these changes in consumers are also hard to fully address in terms of tools and methods. In short, original product development was highly subjective. But even with strong subjectivity, consumers, based on information, knowledge, and the reality of consumption, accepted it. But now, information is completely transparent, so the old methods no longer work! In the mobile era, consumer individuality, culture, and emotions are still hard to capture For consumer goods companies, the above is about how each individual consumer has changed. What this section wants to say is: The consumption concepts, behaviors, and habits of consumer groups have changed, but due to the fragmentation of mobile internet and new interpersonal relationships, it is even more difficult for companies to gain insights into consumer groups. We all say "birds of a feather flock together." If we apply this to products, as long as you do well in a category or create your own independent category, consumers will naturally gather around the product as a carrier. So, companies define consumer groups by age, region, income, etc. That's our old routine. But everyone now says it's "people group by kind." That is, people first form fragmented groups based on various interests, habits, etc. These groups are scattered in various corners of the fragmented era, making it difficult for companies to collect, perceive, analyze, and study them, let alone provide them with so many personalized products for independent groups. Traditional consumer goods companies are products of the large-scale industrialization era, with production lines, organizational structures, and work processes all prepared for that. Adjusting to such small-scale organization and production operations is basically impossible; it would require a complete rebirth. Is there no way to deal with fragmented and new-era consumption? There is still a way, and that is big data. Big data can analyze each person's behavioral data, thereby potentially understanding their consumption concepts and habits. But the problem is that basically no company has such big data, or even a big data collection and analysis system. Moreover, at most, they have terminal channel data systems. To reach a comprehensive consumer data system, companies still have a long way to go! Of course, Alibaba, JD.com, Yihaodian, or some vertical e-commerce platforms now have some big data capabilities, but how far is it from this third-party data being able to influence a company's consumer insights and then develop products?! Stop blaming and despising these consumer goods manufacturers Because this is the change in consumers brought about by mobile internet. And consumer goods companies, whether it's understanding consumers, gaining insights, and then establishing their own new consumer-based product development system, will probably take no less than five more years. All business transformations may be based on this—consumers have changed, and our change, this disruptive change, still requires enough struggle in manpower, material resources, financial resources, and time. Mobile internet has made everything, traditional and new economy, start from scratch. Since that's the case, let's continue to cheer for traditional enterprises! Let's work together for the transformation, upgrading, and even revitalization of traditional enterprises! Stop scolding and belittling. President Xi said: Roll up your sleeves and work hard! New Distribution's "7th B-end E-commerce Study Tour" is now recruiting! Activity process:
June 19-23, Suzhou · Shanghai · Hangzhou 19th: Check in at designated hotel in Suzhou; 20th: Visit Suzhou Maidlin; 21st: Visit Shanghai Hdware; 22nd: Visit Hangzhou Wangcang; 23rd: Return or free arrangement for sightseeing; Welcome distributors interested in transformation to join us to learn and visit on-site: Organization format ************1. Company visit
- Actual market case visit
- On-site explanation
- One-on-one communication************ Participating distributors only need to pay a registration fee of 200 yuan Other expenses are self-covered Long press this QR code or click "Read Original" to register Long press the QR code to add WeChat for registration Group photos from previous tours: 6th B-end E-commerce Tour group photo, from top to bottom: Zhongke Shangruan, Shuhai Supply Chain, Yunmei Media, Yishang Logistics. 5th B-end E-commerce Tour group photo, from top to bottom: Huiwangxing, Beiquan, Tongying Tianxia, Quanshihui, Zhongke Shangruan. 4th B-end E-commerce Tour group photo, from top to bottom: Alibaba Retail Link, Qianmi Network. Click "Read Original" to register -END-