Introduction Jiangxiaobai is so popular, why are its sales still far behind Laocunzhang? Undoubtedly, Jiangxiaobai has achieved phenomenal success, especially in terms of communication. Its pioneering expression bottles have been imitated but never surpassed. Jiangxiaobai-style copywriting frequently goes viral, becoming a representative of internet copywriting along with Durex; "Durex loses to Jiangxiaobai" has become a key "hit-and-run" phrase for clickbait headlines. Jiangxiaobai's IP is deeply rooted in people's hearts, becoming a new local business card in Chongqing. Jiangxiaobai's innovative communication has won many fans, with many young consumers treating drinking Jiangxiaobai as a fashionable expression and a label. However, Jiangxiaobai's sales are not commensurate with its popularity and influence. Jiangxiaobai's sales are not very transparent to the industry. There are various claims online. According to data from Shengchu Consulting, sales in 2016 were 400 million yuan, with an estimated 500 million in 2017. It is said that from July 2016 to July 2017, total online sales were about 120 million yuan, accounting for about 30% of total sales. (Now it's not difficult to find a company's total online sales data; it can be quickly scraped. Interested readers can check the latest figures themselves.) A former executive who left Jiangxiaobai claimed in a promotional case study that Jiangxiaobai's annual sales had reached 1 billion yuan. But whether it's 400 million or 500 million, or even the claimed 1 billion, in the baijiu industry with a market capacity of 600-700 billion yuan, it's only "flyweight" level. On one hand, its communication power rivals Moutai and Wuliangye, far surpassing Yanghe, Fenjiu, and Gujing Gongjiu. On the other hand, its sales are only equivalent to a large county-level distillery in Shandong, with a gap of dozens to hundreds of times compared to first-tier brands, and it's far behind second-tier brands. Among bottle liquor, it's behind Laocunzhang; among small bottles, it's behind Waizuilang. What about the promised "marketing = communication"? What about the new marketing benchmark? There must be a problem here, worth learning from and pondering for all bosses and marketers. "Squeezing milk from a stone" - Jiangxiaobai seems a bit tough "Literary youth Jiangxiaobai" - personalized shaping and creative emotional expression evoke resonance among young people. Jiangxiaobai has achieved this, and extremely successfully. But in triggering consumption, it's not as ideal. It triggers huge traffic, but conversion is low, and retention is even lower. Ogilvy once told an example: a politician gives a speech, and after it, everyone applauds: "Well said!" Another politician gives a speech, and people grab their weapons: "Let's go get that bastard!" Jiangxiaobai seems to have fallen into the first kind of embarrassment. Why is that? Some think it's the price. Compared to other bottle liquor and small bottles, 20 yuan for 100ml of Jiangxiaobai is too expensive. But in reality, for baijiu with strong social attributes, price is never the issue; different prices have different selling methods. There are many complaints that "the copy is heart-wrenching, but the liquor is really bad." That's not the problem either. Most people think it's bad because they compare it to traditional baijiu. Someone used to drinking strong-flavor baijiu would find Moutai bad the first time too. Is it that Jiangxiaobai's market foundation work is poor? On the contrary, Jiangxiaobai's market foundation work is very solid. "Continuous excellent content output" goes without saying; it's the most fundamental reason for Jiangxiaobai's success so far.

A small interlude: In judging such matters, some people always mystify and over-interpret, liking to talk about so-called "hidden reasons" that others can't see to show off their brilliance, such as Jiangxiaobai's strong distribution capability or marketing system. Here, the author teaches you a simple analysis method to see through some mysteries - the purchase trigger analysis method.

To understand the fundamental reason for a product's success, you should learn more about why customers buy it. If customers say they bought it because of an advertisement, then the fundamental reason is advertising, like Hongmao medicinal liquor or Naobaijin. If customers mostly say they bought it because of your terminal activities, then the fundamental reason is terminal pull. If customers say, "I see your product all day, and I bought it out of impatience," then it's good distribution. If customers mostly buy it because others introduced it, then it's strong product pull or good communication triggers...

This simple analysis method comes from qualitative research in market research. Although simple, it has high accuracy. We can use it for simple case analysis and marketing simulations, which is more reliable than listening to hype and following the crowd. As for sample bias, how to judge composite motives, how to make advertisements more appealing, how to make terminal activities more effective, those are more professional technical issues. Jiangxiaobai's terminal foundation work is also solid, and its distribution system is healthy, which is praised in the industry. Advertising investment is unsparing and well-organized. I haven't seen Jiangxiaobai's hard ads, but there are many TV show placements, cultural activities, sponsorships, etc., costing no small amount. In recent years, it should be tens of millions in advertising fees annually. Jiangxiaobai's promotion on e-commerce platforms is also very aggressive. Recently, I've seen almost all available activities being run. If the foundation work is fine and tactics are exquisite, then the problem must lie in the direction. Jiangxiaobai is trying to get young people to accept a new drinking concept, drinking culture, and even new quality standards and taste habits. This is a thankless task. Young people don't drink much baijiu and lack discourse power in it. In traditional baijiu, this is a "chicken rib" market. To make this chicken rib tasty, strong concept output is necessary, which is very difficult to achieve. Even if you manage to do it with great effort, the drinking concept you've cultivated can easily collapse. Like Gongsun Zhi's closed-acupoint skill, it's hard to practice but easy to break. First, as people age, most drinkers will accept mainstream drinking concepts. "Greasy middle-aged" and "Maowu Jian" are the standard, and reading the room for drinking is the norm. Jiangxiaobai must educate batch after batch of young people, which is costly and repetitive. The idea that if young people accept it now, they will naturally continue to accept it when they mature is just a fantasy. Remember when Jiangxiaobai first came out, it labeled itself as post-80s and post-90s. Now it doesn't label itself that way anymore. Because after six or seven years, the older post-80s are approaching 40 and starting to become "greasy." After dating literary youths, they've either found a sugar daddy or married a reliable guy. Second, even if Jiangxiaobai opens up the young people's drinking market and turns the "chicken rib" into "Zhou Hei Ya," it's hard to build a defensive wall against the encroachment of mainstream drinking culture. The internet's influence on people is not to make them more individualistic, but more conformist. Another major problem is that Jiangxiaobai's IP is not in harmony with consumption scenarios. Regardless of what Boss Tao's "persona" for Jiangxiaobai is, in communication, the brand's personalized impression on consumers is "a reserved, sullen literary young man." This image is very successful. If used in beverages, snacks, clothing, or even cultural products, this image would be fine. But when used in baijiu, Jiangxiaobai's brand image is too "yin and soft," not well integrated with the inherent cognition of drinking sessions and drinking culture. Compare the same scenario of drinking until everyone is under the table: Hongxing Erguotou's "Use bullets to defeat enemies, use Erguotou to defeat brothers," and then look at Jiangxiaobai's "I drink everyone under the table just to whisper a secret to you." Which is more fitting? Due to problems in these two major directions, Jiangxiaobai, despite its solid fundamentals, huge investment, and strong influence, has done a lot of good work but hasn't achieved matching sales performance. It fought a beautiful battle on the wrong battlefield, winning the cheers of the crowd, but the bitterness is known only to itself. Marketing expert Zeng Xiangwen once quoted Kotler's famous saying as a comment: "Don't squeeze milk from a stone." If it weren't for Jiangxiaobai's strong content creation capability, it might have died long ago. Self-media people like to share Jiangxiaobai because there are many literary youths among them, and Jiangxiaobai's copy resonates with them. Exaggerating Jiangxiaobai's success gives self-media people who work hard "typing" a sense of achievement; Many business owners like to share Jiangxiaobai because it seems there's a path to success without promotion, just by playing with creativity, and they can also teach their marketing departments or agencies a lesson: "write heart-touching copy"; Many marketers also like to share Jiangxiaobai. Jiangxiaobai skillfully uses self-media communication methods, with concepts like IP and fans, leading many to mistakenly believe it's a landmark new marketing case. In my view, regardless of whether Boss Tao recognizes or understands Ogilvy's brand image theory, Jiangxiaobai's marketing is a successful application of that theory: emphasis on image building, brand image personification, emphasis on emotional communication, and cultural introduction strategy. This is a product of Marketing 2.0, but Jiangxiaobai uses more self-media communication in its methods, making it seem like Marketing 3.0 or even 4.0. From brand image-driven to values-driven Marketing 3.0 to 4.0 is an upgrade of tools and methods, but from Marketing 2.0 to 3.0 is a qualitative leap. Marketing 2.0 is brand-driven, while Marketing 3.0 and 4.0 are values-driven. Under the same mobile internet marketing innovation, why is Xiaomi, which sells hardware, considered an internet company, while Jiangxiaobai, which sells baijiu, is called a creative company or advertising company? Jiangxiaobai is brand image-driven. What resonates with the audience is Jiangxiaobai's brand image and emotional expression, which relies heavily on creativity. But its influence on customers is trend-based and immediate, with weak interactivity. This is also the reason why, in the mobile internet environment, Marketing 2.0 must evolve to 3.0. Xiaomi is values-driven. Through resonance of values, it establishes connections with customers. The interaction among Mi fans, Lei Jun fans, and the company strengthens this alliance that Xiaomi calls an "ecosystem." So Xiaomi spares no effort to communicate "touching hearts, fair prices" and "hardware comprehensive net profit rate not exceeding 5%" to the industry. It's because of this ecosystem that Lei Jun's open letter, "Who is Xiaomi, why does Xiaomi struggle," can go viral and attract strong responses from industry bigwigs like Ma Huateng and Guo Guangchang. Bigwigs all hope for "values resonance" within their companies and with users. Lei Jun is known in the industry as "Lei Bus." What he learned from Jobs is not the keynote, not sentiment, not fan marketing, but the mastery of values-driven marketing methods. Look at these quotes from Jobs, and you'll better understand what values-driven means. "Marketing is about values... Apple's values are that people with passion can make the world a better place, that's our belief... We crazily believe that those who can put ideas into practice are the ones who can change the world.

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... While some see them as the crazy ones, we see geniuses.

Most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." If you still don't understand, spend more time watching the video below, an internal speech Jobs gave after returning to Apple. I call it the first lesson of Marketing 3.0. I hope all readers can master it. May Jobs' spirit bless you. Source: Lao Miao Tears Marketing (ID: yiheyingxiao) -END-