On June 24th, Jiaduobao announced that it had received the civil ruling from the Supreme People's Court on June 18. The Supreme People's Court rejected GPHL's retrial application for the series of advertising words "Drink xxx if you are afraid of getting angry", and the final ruling showed that Jiaduobao could continue to use the advertising words.
At this point, the dispute between Jiaduobao and Wang Laoji has come to an end. For the two giants in the herbal tea beverage industry, the next bigger problem is the gradual decline of the herbal tea beverage market.
Talking about the dispute between Jiaduobao and Wang Laoji dates back to 20 1 1 year.
Following the expiration of the original trademark lease agreement in 20 10, GPHL formally submitted an arbitration request to the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, requesting Hongdao Group (then the parent company of Jiaduobao) to stop using the "Wang Laoji trademark". After two years of tug-of-war, in 20 12, Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court finally ruled that Jiaduobao banned the trademark of Wang Laoji.
At that time, GPHL and Jiaduobao filed lawsuits in court respectively, claiming that they enjoyed the packaging rights of series products such as "Red Pot Wang Laoji Herbal Tea" and suing each other for infringement.
The Higher People's Court of Guangdong Province ruled that the owner of the packaging and decoration rights of "Red Pot Wang Lao Ji" was Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, and ordered Jiaduobao to stop the infringement with immediate effect, and compensate Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group for its economic losses and reasonable rights protection fees of * * * yuan1.500 million yuan.
Then Jiaduobao refused to accept the appeal. Finally, in 20 17, the final judgment of the Supreme People's Court held that both GPHL and Jiaduobao made important contributions to the packaging design of red canned herbal tea during the cooperation period, and both parties enjoyed the packaging and decoration rights of red canned herbal tea without harming the legitimate interests of others. The first battle about the "red can dispute" was successful.
(The picture is taken from Tianyanchai)
During this period, in May of 20 14, GPHL filed a lawsuit to order Jiaduobao to compensate for the economic losses caused by the infringement of the trademark of "Wang Lao Ji" during 20 10 -20 12 years, which was changed to 29.3 yuan in 20 15 years.
The most hotly debated case is the advertising word dispute.
In 20 13, GPHL and Guangzhou Wang Lao Ji Da Health Industry Co., Ltd. jointly sued Guangdong Jiaduobao, and sued Jiaduobao for infringing Wang Lao Ji's interests for the advertising words of "afraid of getting angry and drinking Jiaduobao". The first trial ruled that Guangdong Jiaduobao banned the use of "afraid of getting angry" series of advertising words from now on, and at the same time compensated Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group and Wang Laoji Health Company for 5 million yuan.
Jiaduobao appealed again, and finally rejected all the claims of GPHL.
From trademark, packaging, and advertising words, Jiaduobao and Wang Laoji's "competing" melons can be described as smelly and long.
Just when the two companies focused on fighting with each other, the pattern of the beverage market had already changed.
In 20 12 years, the expansion rate of herbal tea market was 16.7%, but only 9.7% in 20 15 years. Wang Laoji and Jia Duobao also occupied the vast majority of market share at the peak of herbal tea period. Herbal tea was once regarded as the hope of domestic beverages, which once suppressed Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. However, judging from the current consumer demand, herbal tea once had a good hand, and it was already smashed.
With the sustained and steady growth of the national economy, China's beverage industry has shown a good growth trend. The sales volume of beverage market increased from 4,652.1600 million yuan in 20 14 to 578.560 billion yuan in 20 19, with a compound growth rate of 4.46%.
(Image source network)
At present, the domestic beverage market categories are mainly divided into: packaged drinking water, carbonated drinks, fruit juice drinks, ready-to-drink coffee, ready-to-drink tea drinks, functional drinks and so on.
As the packaged drinking water with the widest audience and the largest demand, it has always occupied a large share in the beverage market and is almost stable. In recent years, carbonated drinks and functional drinks with various products and tastes can better meet the diversified needs of consumers and are in a stage of vigorous development. This is a huge impact on the herbal tea industry with a single taste.
But the decline of herbal tea industry goes far beyond this.
In addition to the barrenness in beverage products, the marketing of traditional herbal tea industry is outdated.
Although the advertising words such as "I'm afraid of getting angry and drinking xxx" and "Have an auspicious year and drink Wang Laoji" are familiar, Jiaduobao and Wang Laoji also adhere to the people-friendly and warm style in advertising creativity, but consumers have stopped buying it.
At present, the main consumer groups in the beverage market are mainly young people aged from 15 to 45. Compared with the modest promotion of Jiaduobao and Wang Laoji, other beverage categories are more popular with the public, such as celebrity endorsements and theme activities.
(Offline activities, screenshots from the brand official Weibo)
The key to product marketing lies in "suit the remedy to the case". Only when the consumer groups tend to be younger, can we improve the products to meet the consumer demand of the market and stimulate the brand to revitalize its new vitality.
The endless struggle between Jiaduobao and Wang Laoji in recent ten years, the herbal tea industry has actually declined with the dispute between them. Today's herbal tea market is less than half of its peak. For them, they are not only facing the problem of lagging products, but how to find the positioning of herbal tea under the new market demand is the biggest challenge.