Wang Lao Ji's brand positioning strategy

Brand explanation

Herbal tea is a kind of "medicinal tea" made of Chinese herbal medicines in Guangdong and Guangxi, which has the functions of clearing away heat and removing dampness. Among many time-honored herbal teas, Wang Laoji is the most famous. Wang Laoji herbal tea was invented in the light years of the Qing Dynasty, and has been recognized as the ancestor of herbal tea for 175 years, and is known as the "king of medicinal tea". In modern times, Wang Laoji herbal tea has spread all over the world with the footprints of Chinese.

In the early 1951s, due to political reasons, Wang Laoji's drug number was divided into two branches: one was incorporated into a state-owned enterprise by the government and developed into today's Wang Laoji Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (formerly Yangcheng Pharmaceutical), mainly producing Wang Laoji brand granules (National Medicine Zhunzi); The other was brought to Hong Kong by descendants of the Wang family. In Chinese mainland, Wang Laoji's brand is owned by Wang Laoji Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; In countries and regions with herbal tea markets outside Chinese mainland, Wang Laoji's brands are basically registered by Wang's descendants. Jiaduobao is a Hong Kong-funded company located in Dongguan. It is provided by the descendants of Wang in Hong Kong, and is licensed by Wang Laoji Pharmaceutical to exclusively produce and operate the red canned Wang Laoji (Shijian brand) in the mainland.

Background

Before 2112, on the surface, red canned Wang Laoji (hereinafter referred to as Red Wang Laoji) was a very good brand, with stable sales volume, good profitability and a relatively fixed consumer group. The sales performance of its red Wang Laoji beverage remained at more than 1 billion yuan for several years. After developing to this scale, the management of Jiaduobao found that in order to make the enterprise bigger and go nationwide, they had to overcome a series of problems.

and among all these troubles, the core problem is that enterprises have to face a realistic problem-should the red Wang Lao Ji be sold as "herbal tea" or "beverage"?

The first real problem is that consumers in Guangdong and southern Zhejiang are confused about the red Wang Laoji.

In Guangdong, traditional herbal tea (such as granule, home-made pot, herbal tea shop, etc.) has obvious effects on fire, so consumers generally take it as "medicine", so they don't need to drink it often. The brand of "Wang Lao Ji" with a history of hundreds of years is synonymous with herbal tea. It can be said that when talking about herbal tea, I think of Wang Lao Ji, and when talking about Wang Lao Ji, I think of herbal tea. Therefore, the red Wang Lao Ji is tired of the brand name, and it can't be accepted by Cantonese people as a drink that can be drunk frequently, so the sales volume is greatly limited.

On the other hand, the red Wang Laoji formula produced by Jiaduobao originated from the descendants of Wang in Hong Kong, and it is a nationally approved product with the brand name of Shijian. Its smell, color and packaging are quite different from the traditional herbal tea in consumers' concept, and its taste is sweet. According to the traditional concept of "good medicine tastes bitter" in China, Guangdong consumers naturally feel that its medicine is insufficient to reduce fire. When there is a demand for "fire", it is better to go to a herbal tea shop. Therefore, for consumers, it is not a good choice among the most important herbal teas.

In Guangdong, the red Wang Laoji owns the brand of Wang Laoji, the ancestor of herbal tea, but he has a face of beverage, which makes consumers feel that "it is like herbal tea and like a drink" and falls into cognitive confusion.

In another major sales area of Jiaduobao, namely, southern Zhejiang, mainly Wenzhou, Taizhou and Lishui, consumers compare "Red Wang Laoji" with Kangshifu tea, Wangzai milk and other beverages, and there are no taboos that are not suitable for long-term drinking. In addition, there are many local overseas Chinese. Driven by their guidance, Red Wang Laoji soon became the best-selling product in the local area. Enterprises are worried that Red Wang Laoji may become a fashion that comes and goes in a hurry, just like coconut palm juice, which was a smash hit in southern Zhejiang, was quickly replaced by new fashionable products and disappeared in the streets overnight.

In the face of consumers' confused cognition, enterprises urgently need to provide a strong guidance through advertising to clarify the core value of Red Wang Laoji and distinguish it from competitors.

the second problem is that the red Wang Lao Ji can't go out of Guangdong and southern Zhejiang.

Outside Guangdong and Guangxi, people don't have the concept of herbal tea. Even in the survey, consumers said, "Herbal tea is cool and white, right?" We don't drink cold tea, we make hot tea. The concept of educational herbal tea is obviously expensive. Moreover, the demand of mainland consumers for "reducing fire" has been filled, mostly by taking drugs such as Niuhuang Jiedu tablets.

it is difficult to make herbal tea, and it is also dangerous to make drinks. If we look at the whole beverage industry, carbonated drinks represented by Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, tea drinks and juice drinks represented by Master Kong and Uni-President are in an unshakable market leading position.

Moreover, Red Wang Laoji is boiled with herbs such as honeysuckle, licorice, chrysanthemum, etc., which has a faint taste of traditional Chinese medicine. For drinks with the highest taste, there is indeed no small obstacle. In addition, the retail price of Red Wang Laoji in 3.5 yuan, if Jiaduobao can't distinguish Red Wang Laoji from its competitors, it will never walk out of the shadow of the beverage industry powers.

this makes the red Wang Lao Ji face an extremely embarrassing situation: he can neither stick to the two places nor promote it nationwide.

The third problem is that the concept of corporate propaganda is vague.

jiaduobao company is unwilling to promote herbal tea and limit its sales, but as a beverage, it has not found a suitable division, so it has to be ambiguous in advertising. Many people have seen such an advertisement: a very cute little boy kept rubbing the refrigerator door with his ass in order to open the refrigerator and get a can of Wang Laoji. The slogan is "healthy family, always accompany", obviously this advertisement can not reflect the unique value of red Wang Laoji.

in the promotion of red Wang Lao Ji a few years ago, consumers didn't know why they bought it, and enterprises didn't know how to sell it. In this state, the red Wang Lao Ji actually spent several years in peace. The external reason for this phenomenon is that the China market is still immature and there are many market gaps. The internal reason is that the product itself is irreplaceable and can just fill this position. In China, such a group of small and medium-sized enterprises are allowed to make a lot of money in a muddle. But after developing to a certain scale, if an enterprise wants to be big, it must find out a question: why do consumers buy my products?

repositioning

At the end of p>12, Jiaduobao found Chengmei Consulting Company. The original intention was to shoot an advertisement with the theme of sponsoring the Olympic Games for the red Wang Laoji, and to promote it with the slogan of "sports and health" in order to promote sales.

after a preliminary study, Chengmei found that the sales problem of the red Wang Laoji can not be solved simply by advertising-this problem is particularly typical in China enterprises at present: once the sales volume is blocked, the most common measure is to operate on the advertising film, or to change it beyond recognition, or to quickly create a "big creative" new advertisement-the first problem to be solved is brand positioning.

Although Red Wang Laoji has been sold for 7 years, its brand has never been systematically positioned. Even enterprises can't answer what Red Wang Laoji really is, let alone consumers have no idea why they want to buy it. This is the brand positioning problem of Red Wang Laoji. If this fundamental problem is not solved, it will be of no help to shoot any "creative" advertisements. As david ogilvy, an advertising guru, said: The effect of an advertising campaign depends more on the positioning of your products than how you write advertisements (creativity). After a round of in-depth communication, Jiaduobao finally accepted the suggestion, decided to suspend advertising, and entrusted Chengmei to brand the red Wang Laoji first.

the formulation of brand positioning is mainly to understand consumers' cognition (rather than demand) and put forward ideas different from competitors. Because each brand is based on the analysis of consumer demand, so everyone's conclusions and practices are similar, so meeting the needs of consumers does not make the red Wang Laoji different. Specifically, the formulation of brand positioning is to conduct a comprehensive study of consumers' minds, and to study consumers' cognition, advantages and disadvantages of products, red Wang Laoji and competitors.

and because consumers' cognition is almost unchangeable, brand positioning can only conform to consumers' cognition but not conflict with it. If people have a clear view of the red Wang Laoji, it is best not to try to offend or challenge. Just as consumers think Maotai can't be a good "whisky". Therefore, the brand positioning of Red Wang Laoji cannot conflict with the existing cognition of consumers in Guangdong and southern Zhejiang, so as to stabilize the existing sales and create opportunities for enterprises to survive and expand.

in order to understand consumers' cognition, the research will start with the information spread by the red Wang Lao Ji and competitors in the market, and clarify their possible positions in consumers' minds, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. While collecting second-hand data, Chengmei researchers conducted expert interviews with dealers inside Jiaduobao and in the two places. In the process of re-research, it was found that "Red Wang Laoji owns the brand of Wang Laoji, the ancestor of herbal tea, but has a face of beverage", which means that a product has a contradictory dual identity. However, Jiaduobao is not clear about consumers' cognition and purchase motives. For example, enterprises once thought that the purchase of consumers in southern Zhejiang was mainly due to "high-grade" and "auspicious". Faced with this reality, the enterprise decided to lead by Chengmei and introduce market research companies to help understand consumers' cognition.

Because of the clear purpose of the investigation, it was soon found in the study of "consumption behavior" that Guangdong consumers drank the red Wang Laoji for barbecue, mountain climbing and other activities, and the reasons were nothing more than "drinking a can during barbecue, which was a psychological comfort" and "it was not too serious to get angry, so there was no need to drink Huang Zhenlong" (Huang Zhenlong was the representative of herbal tea shop, and its representative product had strong efficacy, and it had the effect of eliminating dampness and reducing fire).

In southern Zhejiang, drinking occasions mainly focus on "eating out, partying and family". In the process of understanding the local food culture, the researchers found that consumers in this area are more worried about getting angry than those in Guangdong. The candied plum and Coca-Cola on the symposium table were ignored and were called dangerous goods that would get angry (this was also confirmed by the follow-up research). When they evaluate the red Wang Laoji, they often talk about "it won't get angry" and "health, children and the elderly can drink it and it won't cause it to get angry". There may be no scientific basis for these concepts, but this is the concept in the minds of consumers in southern Zhejiang, which is the "only fact" that needs attention in research.

These consumers' cognition and purchasing behavior show that consumers have no "treatment" requirements for red Wang Laoji, but buy it as a functional drink. The real motivation for buying red Wang Laoji is to "prevent getting angry". For example, if they want to reduce the occurrence of getting angry when tasting barbecue, they may use drugs, such as Niuhuang Jiedu tablets and traditional herbal tea for treatment after getting angry.

Further research on consumers' views on competitors shows that the direct competitors of Red Wang Laoji, such as chrysanthemum tea and refreshing tea, only penetrate the market at low prices, and do not occupy the position of "preventing from getting angry" drinks. Coke, tea drinks, juice drinks, water, etc. obviously do not have the function of "preventing getting angry", but only indirect competition.

At the same time, the establishment of any brand positioning must be the brand's best ability to occupy, that is, there is evidence to follow. For example, Coca-Cola said "authentic Coke" because it is the inventor of Coke. Researchers have studied the cognition of enterprises and products themselves in consumers' minds. The results show that Wang Laoji's identity as the "ancestor of herbal tea", mysterious Chinese herbal medicine formula and the history of 175 years are obviously capable of occupying the "drink to prevent getting angry".

Because "preventing getting angry" is the real motivation for consumers to buy red Wang Laoji, it is obviously beneficial to consolidate and strengthen the original market. Whether it can meet the expectations of enterprises for the new positioning and "enter the national market" has become the next step of research. Through second-hand materials, expert interviews and other research, it is unanimously shown that the concept of "clearing away heat and toxic materials" in China for thousands of years has been widely popularized throughout the country, and the concepts of "getting angry" and "getting rid of fire" have also been deeply rooted in people's hearts everywhere, which makes the red Wang Laoji break through the limitations of regional brands. Chengmei's researchers believe: "With the transfer of this propaganda concept, as long as there is a place for China people, the red Wang Laoji can survive."

At this point, the research on brand positioning has been basically completed. After one month of cooperation, Chengmei submitted a brand positioning research report to Jiaduobao. First, it was made clear that the red Wang Laoji was competing in the "beverage" industry, and its competitors should be other beverages; Its brand positioning-"drinks to prevent getting angry", its unique value lies in that drinking red Wang Laoji can prevent getting angry and let consumers enjoy life without worry: frying, spicy food, barbecue, watching football all night ...

This positioning of red Wang Laoji is based on the overall consideration of the realistic situation, with four main benefits;

First, it is conducive to the promotion of Red Wang Laoji out of Guangdong and southern Zhejiang

Because "getting angry" is a universal concept of traditional Chinese medicine in China, it is no longer confined to Guangdong and Guangxi like "herbal tea", which completely clears the obstacles for Red Wang Laoji to go to the whole country.

Secondly, it avoids the direct competition between Red Wanglaoji and beverage giants at home and abroad, forming a unique division

Thirdly, it successfully turns the disadvantages of Red Wanglaoji products into advantages

a faint taste of traditional Chinese medicine, and into a powerful support for "preventing excessive internal heat"

the retail price of 3.5 yuan, because of the "function of preventing excessive internal heat". No longer "unattainable"

The brand name and long history of "Wang Laoji" have become a powerful support to prevent "authentic" fire.

Fourth, it is beneficial to the cooperation between Jiaduobao enterprises and domestic Wang Laoji pharmaceutical industry.

It is precisely because the red Wang Laoji of Jiaduobao is positioned as a functional beverage, which is different from the "medicine" and "herbal tea" of Wang Laoji pharmaceutical industry that it can better promote the cooperation between the two companies. At present, the two companies have jointly funded the filming of a TV series "Medicine Man Wang Laoji" about the founder Wang Laoji's medical practice.

In the report submitted by Chengmei, it is also clearly pointed out that in order to distinguish it from the products of Wang Laoji Pharmaceutical, as Jiaduobao is the only enterprise in China that can produce red Wang Laoji products, the packaging should be displayed as much as possible in the publicity, and the full name "red canned Wang Laoji beverage" appears more often.

Because in consumers' cognition, diet is an important reason for getting angry, especially "spicy" and "fried" diet, in the report submitted by Chengmei, it is also suggested to add on the basis of maintaining the original sales channels.