Even without infringement incidents, people no longer like to use the title 'the Haidilao of ××'. Now, emerging brands prefer to tout Genki Forest because it's hot, young, and has more growth potential. Against the backdrop of sluggish growth among many giants in the past two years, Genki Forest has surged ahead, becoming the fastest-growing dark horse. At the beginning of the year, the authoritative institution Dolphin Society released the '2021 China New Consumption and New National Brand TOP 100 Ranking', where Genki Forest won first place in growth rate in the domestic beverage and alcohol industry, with 2020 sales scale increasing by 309% year-on-year. The Chinese Academy of Sciences' recent '2021 China Sugar-Free Beverage Market Trend Insight Report' also shows that in 2020, Genki Forest's compound growth rate reached as high as 334% (in comparison, Nongfu Spring was 14%, Coca-Cola and Pepsi were only 7% and 2% respectively). Recently, there have even been rumors that Genki Forest's sales this year will exceed 10 billion yuan, achieving a year-on-year growth of 270%. Whether the rumors are true or not, it is undeniable that Genki Forest is indeed 'too fierce'. How to achieve 'Genki Forest-style' growth has also become a question that all new consumer brands want to ask. ****Market Breakthrough Experience under Product Logic Looking back at Genki Forest's explosive growth today, we can clearly see its two main threads: first, break through the market through products and channels, and then rely on brand power to achieve exponential growth and soaring. The two are sequential, mutually supportive, and indispensable. Recently, there have been some analyses that go against basic brand theory, believing that Genki Forest is not actually outstanding in products, channels, and brand, and attributing most of its success to insight into and exploitation of the pain point of young people's 'obsession with weight loss and fear of fat and sugar'. That's pure nonsense. Without truly delicious taste and solid product strength, no matter how sharp the insight, it would end up like Zhao Kuo, who was only good at talking on paper, and ultimately 'killed' would be investors' funds and the team's entrepreneurial enthusiasm. Let's get back to the point. Examining all of Genki Forest's strategies and tactics, you'll find that it is a faithful practitioner of 'anti-traditional methodology'—almost all of Genki Forest's strategies are reverse thinking, which is probably related to Tang Binsen's internet background. There are countless directions for entrepreneurship, but the soft drink track is fiercely competitive. Other entrants try to avoid it, but the outsider Tang Binsen insists on charging in—setting up camp in enemy territory and opening up a blue ocean in the red sea. All new brands entering the market basically win with high appearance and high cost-performance ratio. Genki Forest, a brand with no name, insists on setting a very high price; in terms of raw material selection, it is also very 'rebellious', insisting on pioneering the industry and choosing erythritol, the most expensive raw material. Before R&D, it conducts large-scale market research and taste tests; products that cost 5 million yuan to produce are judged unqualified and then destroyed at a cost of 1 million yuan; in addition, there are various e-commerce tests and convenience store tests, constantly trying and erroring, adjusting based on feedback, and finally launching to the market... The internet's 'small steps, fast iteration, trial and error' approach has been played out by Genki Forest across the entire soft drink industry chain—these are operations unimaginable in traditional and large FMCG enterprises, and not easy to learn. Speaking of channels, initially Genki Forest did not choose traditional channels like large supermarkets for distribution, but instead played 'rural surrounding the city'—focusing on emerging chain convenience stores, and specifically placing products next to competitors' products to observe consumer attention feedback. After becoming famous, Genki Forest first legitimately entered large supermarkets, then began to seize the layout of smart freezers and vending machines, squeezing out the freezers of major manufacturers like Nongfu Spring, C'estbon, and Master Kong, forcing Zhong Shanshan to spend heavily on the 'God of Wealth Descends' campaign to 'seize competitors' freezers and buy back our freezers'. This year, Genki Forest has deployed over 180,000 smart freezers, and the further enhanced channel advantage will inevitably help continue sales growth. After analysis, we can see that Genki Forest's 'anti-traditional methodology' is actually backed by the basic strategic logic—accurate insight first, product strength follows, and channels attack accordingly. Other brands do this too, but few can do all three well: either blindly focusing on online, or products lagging behind, or insight into a false demand, and finally asking in frustration—why can Genki succeed? We should also note that all those emerging brands that have gained the upper hand in high-growth consumer tracks, such as Ubras,润百颜, Winona, etc., behind their sharp and precise insights, must have absolutely excellent and strong product strength. Those that rely only on appearance, have only insight, or blindly follow trends but lack actual product strength, are like embroidered pillows—they are bound not to survive to the finale in the TV drama 'New Consumption Battle Royale'. As the plot progresses, there is no such thing as 'fizzling out' in new consumption; it's just that during the silent killing, the sand is being sifted. ****Exponential Growth Law under Brand Model Finally, let's talk about brand. Anyone who can't compete in insight, product, or channel basically ends up attributing Genki Forest's success to being 'rich and spending money on advertising'. Hilarious. The foundation of product strength determines the superstructure of brand, and the improvement of brand awareness will continue to feed back into product sales, showing exponential growth—this is the 1+1=2 principle in the branding world, but few people listen. Basically, the question of whether to invest persistently in brand building is equivalent to the question of 'whether to plant the seed in the ground or eat it now'. Unfortunately, most companies choose to eat the seed. Because their theory is: 'Brand building and brand advertising are indeed useful, but I need to survive first.' So they turn around and become addicted to performance advertising with 'certain ROI'. But the problem is that ROI has nothing to do with brand growth. Relying on performance advertising can 'survive' temporarily, but it can't cope with the winter. Because the growth pattern of the traffic model is: immediate placement, immediate orders; the more you invest, the more orders; when the placement ends, the effect stops. Product sales and traffic operations are deeply bundled, and the revenue and cost of the traffic model show a proportional linear growth relationship. Linear growth is the current comfort zone, but you'll eventually find that costs always increase faster than revenue, and the risk factor rises accordingly. To put it bluntly, it's like drinking poison to quench thirst or boiling a frog in warm water. In the past, P&G also focused on improving ROI, but after a while, it quickly discovered that ROI had almost nothing to do with brand growth. Adidas was once addicted to performance advertising, with impressive ROI data, but sales, penetration, and prices were all visibly declining. The failure caused by wrong brand strategy was ultimately attributed by Adidas to 'China's market demand has shifted towards local brands rather than global brands'... Alright... Let's get back to Genki. Most people think Genki Forest's success is due to spending money. But daring to spend money is one thing, knowing how to spend money is another. Adidas also dared to spend money, investing 3 billion yuan in performance advertising and buying a bunch of lessons. Tang Binsen indeed dares to spend money. His past success in gaming was based on 'daring to spend 1.8 billion on advertising when creating 2 billion in revenue', and it was all high-profile tactics like 'brand exposure in central cities like New York, London, and Moscow'. Tang Binsen knows how to spend money. He deeply understands the importance of single-point breakthrough and focus strategy—1% penetration in 10 markets is not as good as 10% penetration in 1 market. Because 10% of consumers in one market will ignite the remaining 90%, and even ignite other related markets. More importantly, Genki Forest follows a brand growth model rather than a traffic growth model. Tang Binsen shared in an interview that in 2020, Genki Forest mainly invested in Focus Media elevator media and cooperated with Bilibili's New Year's Eve gala. These major channels are basically brand advertising logic. The growth pattern of the brand model is: slow growth in the early stage of placement, sales surge after a few months or half a year, and the effect continues after the placement ends. As brand awareness and market penetration reach a critical point, revenue shows exponential growth and produces long-term effects, with advertising costs correspondingly reduced. The revenue and cost of the brand model have an S-shaped exponential growth relationship. The exponential growth process brought by brand advertising is very evident in the rise of the Genki Forest brand. In May 2020, when other brands were cutting advertising budgets due to the uncertainty of the pandemic, Genki Forest heavily invested in Focus elevator ads, dominating the screens for a long time, directly leading to a sales explosion in the following months. In fact, this kind of repetitive brand advertising like Focus Media mainly targets consumer minds, requiring seizing the fleeting time window. At that time, no brand in the industry had become the representative of sugar-free sparkling water, which gave Genki Forest the opportunity to rise rapidly. As Tang Binsen said: 'Placing ads is to compete head-on with opponents. In doing business in China, if you don't make key efforts at key times, you'll miss opportunities.' Similarly, the sponsorship of Bilibili's New Year's Eve gala and variety shows also serves the role of brand advertising. Although it cannot be directly quantified into conversion data, it accumulates some consumer mindshare, and that familiarity and affinity will later translate into specific purchase behavior. Extremely valuing the role and investment of brand advertising and offline advertising is the most important feature of Genki Forest's brand strategy. It is said that within Genki Forest, pure internet marketing is metaphorically described as 'online dating with consumers', while brand needs to use elevator media and outdoor advertising to build connections and communication relationships with consumers in physical space. This is also a process of helping the brand move from virtual to real. It is precisely the continuous investment in brand advertising that eventually reached the ignition point of brand explosion, making it completely popular, directly leading to a qualitative leap in product sales, and providing the possibility for subsequent channel invasion. Next, we all know the story. In fact, not only Genki Forest, but if you analyze the consumer market over the years, you'll find that all brands that successfully broke through and achieved high growth are those that, on the basis of strong product strength, attached great importance to brand building. And those that died in the cold winter of 'New Year's Eve' are basically the group that said 'when I have money later'. After all the analysis, the 'secret' to breakthrough and high growth is right there. But the reality is that some people can't do it, some don't dare to do it, and some are waiting for 'later'. Are you 'watching' me?