---
title: "Zhu Danpeng: From Challenger to Leader, What Key Steps Did Evergrande Spring Steady on?"
description: "When Guangzhou Evergrande won the AFC Champions League in 2013, Evergrande Spring emerged overnight. Over two years, it transformed from a challenger to a leader in China's mineral water market. This article analyzes the key steps it took, including seizing market and policy advantages, innovating with 'one bottle, one code' marketing, and adjusting prices to promote healthy drinking habits."
author: "朱丹蓬"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-01-18"
language: "en"
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# Zhu Danpeng: From Challenger to Leader, What Key Steps Did Evergrande Spring Steady on?

> When Guangzhou Evergrande won the AFC Champions League in 2013, Evergrande Spring emerged overnight. Over two years, it transformed from a challenger to a leader in China's mineral water market. This article analyzes the key steps it took, including seizing market and policy advantages, innovating with 'one bottle, one code' marketing, and adjusting prices to promote healthy drinking habits.

When Guangzhou Evergrande won the AFC Champions League in 2013, Evergrande Spring emerged overnight and became famous. Such a high-profile debut attracted attention and speculation from the whole society. Within three years, Guangzhou Evergrande won the AFC Champions League twice, and Evergrande Spring, after two years of refinement, completed a magnificent transformation from 'challenger' to 'leader'. So what key steps did Evergrande Spring take in the past two years? Having been engaged in food and brand research for over 20 years, I would like to share my views with readers through continuous observation and research.
**I. Market and Policy Advantages: The First Step to Seize First-Mover Advantage**
Since the beginning of the 21st century, China's bottled water industry has entered a stage of steady development, initially forming a situation where purified water, mineral water, mineralized water, and natural water each lead their own way. In 2014, the industry scale reached 100 billion yuan, with the four major drinking water brands—Kangshifu, Nongfu Spring, Wahaha, and C'estbon—achieving nearly 50 billion yuan in turnover, occupying half of China's drinking water market. However, none of the four major brands currently dominating China's drinking water market are mineral water brands, indicating the huge development space for China's mineral water industry. With Chinese consumers' increasing demand for healthy drinking water, the promulgation of new national standards for drinking water, and the introduction of the strictest advertising law in history, water products that play on the edge or gimmicks will gradually disappear. Consumers will be freed from the confusion of 'concept water' and have a more urgent need for 'real mineral water'. In the future, mineral water will become a new highlight and growth point for China's drinking water industry.
Data shows that per capita consumption of mineral water in Asian countries is far lower than in European countries: Thailand 70 liters, Hong Kong 70 liters, Japan 10 liters, while mainland China only 2-2.5 liters, currently only 1/50 of European countries. If per capita consumption of mineral water in mainland China increases by 1 liter, China's mineral water production will increase by more than 2/3 compared to now. Therefore, I predict that by 2018, the market size of China's mineral water industry will reach 35 billion yuan, and from 2016, the golden age of China's mineral water industry will begin. 'A good wind favors the rising sail.' It is under this industry development trend and consumption trend that Evergrande Spring entered the mineral water market timely and forcefully. With its core advantages of scale and strength, quality and brand, marketing and service, it achieved remarkable results on its second anniversary, such as leading the industry in monthly sales and being listed among the top 500 brands.
**II. 'One Bottle, One Code' Aligns with Internet+ to Promote a New Marketing Layout**
In the context of 'Internet+', marketing has entered the 4.0 era of 'consumer is king'. Traditional marketing models are outdated, and price wars in the drinking water industry are not a long-term solution. How can FMCG achieve an Internet+ marketing model? I believe the core of 'Internet+' lies in how to introduce internet thinking and behavioral patterns into brand marketing, from product R&D and production to traffic entry points, linking platforms, and brand value communication, all interconnected and integrated, so that consumers fall in love with the brand and consume the brand. Evergrande Spring returned to the product itself through 'one bottle, one code', using the greatest product sincerity to communicate deeply with consumers. Its pioneering QR code traceability technology, through the small QR code on the bottle cap, solved the long-standing industry problem of counterfeit and substandard drinking water safety, ensuring that every bottle of Evergrande Spring is real mineral water. Adhering to 'one water source for the whole country', it lets the whole nation drink healthy real mineral water from Changbai Mountain, a world-class water source.
While showing 'quality sincerity', Evergrande also made a big deal out of the QR code platform. The unique 'one bottle, one code' marketing model not only makes the quality and production of Evergrande Spring transparent, so consumers can drink with confidence, but also carries out a series of fun and participatory marketing activities on the basis of the 'code', unifying various online and offline interactive methods such as Evergrande football team events, college football leagues, and code-scanning carnival seasons on the bottle cap QR code, rapidly enhancing comprehensive competitive strength.
'One bottle, one code' immediately sparked a trend of imitation in the FMCG marketing circle. Now we can see various 'one can, one code' and 'one pack, one code'. At this point, Evergrande Spring, through two years of high-profile efforts, has made 'one bottle, one code' not only a quality assurance measure at the food safety level but also an innovation in the competitive model of the drinking water industry. I believe that from emphasizing one water source to build the brand at the beginning to the new strategy of interactive three-dimensional integrated marketing with 'one bottle, one code', Evergrande Spring's brand path is becoming more stable and its pace more solid.
**III. Price Concessions: Paying for Consumers' Habit of Drinking Good Water**
The national food safety standard 'Packaged Drinking Water' GB19298 requirements for label marking will be officially implemented from January 1, 2016. From then on, drinking water products on the market will be concentrated in two categories: natural mineral water and packaged drinking water. With the gradual formation of consumers' healthy drinking water concept, the demand for natural mineral water, as the first choice for healthy drinking, will inevitably increase. However, in China, the price of natural mineral water is still higher than consumers' general psychological expectations, which to some extent constitutes a barrier to the popularization of natural mineral water and hinders the healthy development of the mineral water industry. Currently, the promotion of high-end mineral water in China is still relatively crude. I believe market education for consumers is necessary. Through a year of advertising bombardment, using celebrity endorsements, quality education, football marketing, etc., Evergrande Spring successfully guided consumers to adopt the healthy concept of drinking natural mineral water. Everything Evergrande Spring does has only one purpose: to let all consumers get used to and be able to drink healthy natural mineral water.
According to my understanding, after more than a year of publicity about the water source and consumer education through 'one bottle, one code', the effect of Evergrande Spring's accumulation is beginning to show, and sales have entered a virtuous cycle. In July 2015, Evergrande Spring's monthly sales increased by 180% year-on-year, far exceeding the total sales of some well-known similar brands over 1-2 years.
Evergrande Spring was also the first to break the price barrier of high-quality mineral water. Not only did it implant the concept of healthy drinking water into consumers' minds, but it also benefited the people through price concessions, delivering more affordable healthy mineral water to consumers. At a price of 2.5 yuan, it exchanged experience for word-of-mouth, and word-of-mouth promoted popularization—more and more consumers have fully recognized the concept of healthy drinking water and developed the habit of drinking good water. The price adjustment allows consumers to purchase high-quality healthy water at an affordable price, allowing more Chinese people to experience real mineral water. This will inevitably promote the further popularization of natural mineral water. It is a dual-benefit measure that benefits the people, inherits health, and promotes industry development.
Since its establishment two years ago, Evergrande Spring has been constantly making moves, using a promotion model different from traditional brands, attracting widespread attention in the industry. But in my view, these phenomena reflect Evergrande's ambition and boldness, and are a layout that Evergrande Spring has set up—a big picture that ordinary people cannot understand. Let's think about it: the competition in China's drinking water market is so fierce, with strong players like Kangshifu, Nongfu Spring, Wahaha, C'estbon, Jingtian, etc. If Evergrande Spring wanted to enter the industry in a short time, without unconventional marketing strategies, using resources to exchange for space and time, success would basically be a mirage. It is precisely because of this unconventional path, high-profile and bold advancement, that Evergrande Spring leaped from a challenger in the mineral water industry to a leader in China's mineral water industry within two years.
I believe that China's mineral water market will reach a market size of 35 billion yuan in the next three years, and through Evergrande Spring's continuous consumer education and promotion of healthy drinking water, natural mineral water will become the mainstream category in China's drinking water market. This will inevitably play a key role in the structural upgrading of China's drinking water industry. With Evergrande Spring's sustained strong promotion, a new era of drinking healthy natural mineral water for the whole nation is about to begin!
**-END-**
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