NEW DISTRIBUTION RESEARCH TOPIC
How can brands grow beyond price competition?
Evidence and cases on product strategy, category innovation, marketing, and channel coordination in China’s consumer market.
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4701 articles · Page 82 of 196
Why 'Making Waves' Is Essential for Brand Communication
During the 2020 China FMCG Conference, the author proposed that in the digital age, brands must 'make waves,' be recommendable, and continuously create value for users to rebuild connections. This model, based on user lifecycle management, emphasizes sustained engagement over fleeting traffic, and the article focuses on the first topic: 'making waves' as a form of communication that creates spectacles, not just PR events.
赵波Wahaha Pivots to Infant Formula, Gambling on a Crowded Market
Wahaha is again targeting the infant formula market, planning to launch several stage-3 toddler formulas. Notably, the registration numbers for these products belong to other companies, leading industry insiders to suggest Wahaha is "borrowing a womb" to circumvent regulations. Despite past attempts since 2010, Wahaha has yet to establish a foothold in the formula market.
钱瑜 白杨 王晓After the 'Black Swan', What Fate Awaits Yanjing Beer?
Following the recent 'black swan' event involving Yanjing Beer's chairman, Zhao Xiaodong, the company's fate may not be completely altered. Despite the setback, a large enterprise's trajectory is unlikely to be fundamentally changed by one or two incidents. This article shares personal views on Yanjing Beer's development path and future prospects.
陈峰Can Nongfu Spring's Dongdong Tea Become the Next Genki Forest and Create a New Category to Be the First?
Nongfu Spring listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 8, with a peak market value of HK$445.292 billion, comparable to 2.5 Mengniu, 1.5 Yili, or nearly 5 Master Kong. Despite being dubbed the 'half-hour richest man' by the media, Zhong Shanshan remains extremely low-key. Shortly after listing, the company launched its first new product, Dongdong Tea, which combines jelly and tea, aiming to create a new category and ride the sugar-free trend.
苏相如Is 'Zero-Calorie, Sugar-Free' the Real 'Money Shot' in the Beverage Industry?
Meal replacements, plant-based diets, low-carb, superfoods... The global food and beverage consumer market is undergoing dramatic changes every day. 'Sugar-free, low-calorie, natural' have become the key words for new products from major companies, with an endless array of segmented functions precisely targeting different consumer needs. However, most functional foods have high market education and price barriers, while zero-calorie, sugar-free beverages have consistently held a large market share due to their convenience, quick consumption, and high cost-performance, making them the 'C-position player' worldwide. According to Nielsen statistics, sugar-free beverages...
TOP HERBright Dairy Bets on Low-Temperature Milk, but Natural Shortcomings May Hinder Its Ambitions
Can Bright Dairy reverse its decline? Competition in China's dairy market has intensified, leading domestic and foreign dairy companies to compete fiercely across various segments. Once considered a strong contender, Bright Dairy, headquartered in Shanghai, appears to have fallen behind in recent years, especially after going all-in on the low-temperature milk market this year.
加缪Jinmailang Liangbaikai: A 'Glorious' Present and a 'Worrisome' Future
In early September this year, Nongfu Spring was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, opening at HK$39.8 per share, with a total market value of HK$445.3 billion. This directly made Zhong Shanshan, founder of Nongfu Spring who holds 84.4% of shares, surpass internet tycoons like Jack Ma and Pony Ma to become China's richest person. The information disclosed by Nongfu Spring's listing focused the business world's attention on the 'story of bottled water.' According to a survey by Euromonitor, China's bottled water market has a capacity of 183 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 11.8% over five consecutive years. Although the bottled water market is large and growing fast, competition is unprecedentedly fierce.
刘冉70 Million Marketers Are Pretending to 'Focus on Users' Every Day
The article argues that many companies merely pretend to be user-centric, failing to identify what customers truly care about or how to act on it. Using examples like Zulijian elderly shoes and Haidilao, it explains the difference between abstract and concrete levels of business strategy, emphasizing the need to align both through tools like STP analysis.
韩少春Go, Sell Coffee in Lower-Tier Markets!
In 2020, the coffee market remained hot with major events. Among freshly ground coffee brands, Luckin survived its fraud scandal and was reported profitable in August; Starbucks planned to add 500 net new stores in China in fiscal 2020; Tencent invested in Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons. In non-freshly ground coffee, premium instant coffee brand Saturdays completed a B-round financing of over 100 million yuan in early September, with a valuation exceeding 800 million. Other leading brands in drip coffee and coffee liquid, such as Shi Cui, Yong Pu, and Tianshang, also secured funding. Data shows that coffee demand in lower-tier markets is growing faster than in first- and second-tier cities, driven by 'small-town youth' seeking lifestyle parity, presenting a blue ocean opportunity for coffee brands.
阿图Coca-Cola's 'Elephant Turn': Halving Its 500 Global Brands and Cutting 4,000 Jobs
Coca-Cola announced a $550 million severance package and 4,000 job cuts, and plans to halve its 500 global brands, including discontinuing its coconut water brand Zico, as part of a restructuring to cope with the COVID-19 crisis. Despite a 28% drop in Q2 sales, the company saw a 14% sales increase in China, which is recovering faster from the pandemic.
New Distribution今麦郎、白象 vs 拉面说:差在哪了???
As people pay more attention to healthy eating, fast foods like instant noodles are being gradually abandoned. But don't think instant noodles have fallen out of favor; they haven't. Among the rapidly popular consumer brands in the past two years, besides beverages like Heytea, Naixue's Tea, Li Ziqi, Haohuanluo's river snail rice noodles, and Zhong Xue Gao ice cream, there are also noodle brands like Lamian Shuo that focus on the ramen segment. When it comes to instant noodles, the first names that come to mind are Kangshifu, Uni-President, and the Japanese and Korean brands familiar to the public in recent years, while Jinmailang and Baixiang are relatively weaker.
keddy30 Laws for Sales Managers' Survival
This article outlines 30 laws for sales managers, covering responsibilities, human nature, problem-solving, team building, training, management, and thinking. It emphasizes that sales managers should enable ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results, manage经销商 effectively, and focus on standardization and control.
刘春雄Trend | Oat Milk, Non-Alcoholic Beverages, Probiotic Functional Drinks... Five High-Growth Beverage Categories Worth Watching
Beverages are no longer just a way to quench thirst; consumers want drinks that support their health. Research firm SPINS has released growth data for five beverage categories with high market demand, all with clear health attributes, which saw significant growth over the past year, especially during the pandemic: oat milk, non-alcoholic beverages, mixed drinks, water, and probiotic functional drinks.
kariyaMarket Research: The Starting Point of an Excellent Sales Director
Opening recruitment websites, one finds that the most frequently advertised positions in FMCG companies are for channel development. Indeed, channel development is the first step for a company to monetize its products. Fifteen years ago, with rapid economic and population growth, channel development was relatively easy; as long as the product was available and the 'old playbook' was followed, subsequent marketing efforts usually went smoothly. However, in recent years, this is no longer the case: products are developed, but channel development is difficult; even when distributors are found, nurturing them is challenging, leading to 'abandoned' markets. What exactly is the reason? Even when farmers have favorable weather, they may still have poor harvests, which can be attributed to three reasons...
高级研究员 海游Once Crowned 'Beer King of Northwest China,' Now Hooked on Stock Trading...
Once crowned the 'Beer King of Northwest China' and listed on China's capital market in 1999 as the second beer company to go public, Lanzhou Huanghe has seen its fortunes decline. While its main beer business has struggled with falling revenue, the company has increasingly turned to stock investment, which has become a major source of its fluctuating profits.
吴勇毅No Matter How Popular Online, How High the Volume, Offline is the Main Battlefield for Internet-Famous Brands!
In recent years, the rise of the new consumption wave has made online platforms an incubator for new consumer brands, creating many bestsellers. New Distribution has interviewed and reported on dozens of innovative consumer brands, and through communication with founders, it was found that these brands, after achieving online popularity, encounter many challenges when entering offline channels.
道农Two Years Later, Will 'Aliens' Beat Red Bull?
The functional beverage market is facing potential disruption from new entrants like Genki Forest's 'Alien' brand. While some believe new forces will struggle to challenge established players within five years, others argue that with capital, product innovation, and appeal to younger consumers, they could eventually overtake the old guard.
水牛蚁4 Years, 1 Billion Bottles Sold: Unpacking the Success of Genki Forest
If the food industry had a trending list, the emerging national trend brand Genki Forest would undoubtedly rank at the top. During the 2019 Double 11 shopping festival, Genki Forest ranked second in online sales nationwide, beating out Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. In 2020, it again defeated the two giants to retain the Tmall beverage category crown. In just the first half of 2020, sales exceeded 800 million bottles, and over four years, cumulative sales surpassed 1 billion bottles, reaching one-tenth of Coca-Cola's decades-long sales volume in China. By July of this year, its valuation had reached 14 billion yuan, close to that of Heytea.
李相如Dairy Battle: Yili Ambrosial vs. Bright Dairy's Morsslyn
The book 'Mao Zedong's Strategic Wisdom and Modern Business Warfare' states that whenever there are more than two active competitors in a product or market, someone is making a mistake. Market leaders who neglect competition leave room for rivals, potentially leading to their own downfall, as seen with Morsslyn and Ambrosial. This article reviews the history of ambient yogurt, from Morsslyn's pioneering launch in 2009 to Ambrosial's rapid rise to dominance, analyzing the strategies behind Ambrosial's success.
CcGuochao Beverage Hit-Maker Hankow Er Chang Completes Two Rounds of Financing Exceeding 100 Million Yuan, Pushes into Healthy Milk Tea Market
Hankow Er Chang recently announced the completion of two consecutive financing rounds: an A round led by Qingliu Capital with participation from Hillhouse Ventures and Country Garden Venture Capital, and an A+ round led by Shunwei Capital, with total financing exceeding 100 million yuan and existing shareholder QinQin Investment increasing its stake. As a representative of the trendy guochao beverage brands, Hankow Er Chang originated from the once-popular 'Erchang Soda' in Wuhan. Inspired by urban cultural memories, the founding team aims to create a 'trendy beverage' that accompanies the growth of contemporary young people, launching the new brand 'Hankow Er Chang'. Its products have become phenomenal hits upon release, attracting capital market attention and ultimately gaining financial backing to fuel its growth.
New DistributionFirst-rate companies serve users, second-rate companies make products, third-rate companies chase traffic
Companies that chase traffic cannot outdo those that make products, and those that make products cannot outdo those that serve users. LEGO's turnaround from product-centric to user-centric thinking illustrates this principle, as it shifted focus from fleeting trends to timeless human needs, leading to its resurgence as the world's most profitable toy company.
响马老苗2-Year Sales Surge of 2000%, 100+ SKUs: Shark Fit Founder on Hit Product Logic
As per capita consumption rises, the wave of consumption upgrade is driven by evolving consumer attitudes, expanding the industry's scale and creating more space for growth. In recent years, the 'health' trend in the food sector has remained strong, prompting even industry giants to test the waters. For instance, last year, COFCO launched weight-loss meal replacement biscuits, Want Want introduced its healthy snack brand Fix Body, and Master Kong released a meal replacement bar called 'Sunshine Youxian'.
何年Genki Forest/Perfect Diary/Nayuki Tea: How Long Can the High Valuations of New Consumption Brands Last?
Some new consumption players are merely catering to capital's valuation methods, boosting sales through marketing, with considerable bubbles behind their high valuations. Capital's logic for paying premiums is that valuation should not only consider current scale but also future plans and imagination. With the support of the internet and funds, new brands that have achieved 'sales takeoff' through marketing have passed the first stage, but balancing growth expectations and brand value will be a common challenge. In a year when capital is generally cautious...
鸿键City Manager's Playbook: Distribution and Sell-Through Strategies for Low-Frequency Daily Chemical Products in 6 Million Small Stores
After a day of visiting dozens of small stores under the scorching sun, Lao Wang and his team review their findings. Facing complaints about slow-moving shampoo and price inversion on laundry detergent, Lao Wang insists on changing distribution and sell-through strategies. The article analyzes the trends of small stores (convenience, platform, community) and provides targeted solutions for city managers to tackle the challenges of low-frequency daily chemical products.
许翔 Ryan Xu