In the late 1990s, the candy market in China has undergone earth-shaking changes. Traditional candy is leisure, festive candy is professional, a large number of foreign candy brands are pouring in, and chocolate is widely accepted by Chinese people. The marketing era of winning only by "product quality" has ended, and it has been replaced by a systematic marketing era composed of brands, products, channels, terminals, public relations, advertising, promotion, human resources and marketing management.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. The advantage is gone.
Whoa, whoa, never gave up trying.
Change the product, change the packaging and change the logo. The market does not accept it! Suspected to be a fake! Dealers don't want goods! Sales continue to decline! The national market is in a hurry!
Adjust the dealer! Update the team! General Manager of Airborne!
……
All the efforts only brought one result. In 2002-2003, the sales volume of Wowo and the market share of Wowo fell to the lowest point in more than ten years.
How can "whoa whoa" break through adversity?
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" In 2004, such a sentence came out from the bottom of my heart.
If there is a good product, more people should know about it and let it bring good benefits to the enterprise.
Wowo Company won a national invention patent for toffee in 1998. That's a unique good product. If "sandy toffee" is not pushed at this time, when will it stay?
Wowo toffee
Good products need good people to plan and professional people to operate.
So, on March 1 1 2004, Wowo Company officially signed a contract with marketing planning agencies, Ye Maozhong, and recruited a group of professional marketers to join the team of Wowo Company.
Where to break through? The same problem before the Ye Maozhong this fellow.
Product, or product.
The patented technology of "sandy toffee" was finally moved out. Sucrose was recrystallized into 30 micron ultrafine crystal particles, and natural New Zealand milk powder cream was added. A high-quality toffee with rich milk flavor, smooth and delicate taste and non-stick teeth was born.
Will consumers accept this product?
Only market research has the answer.
In April 2004, 1633 target consumers in five cities, namely, Shanghai, Chengdu, Nanchang, Xi 'an and Wuhan, accepted a comparative blind test organized by Ye Maozhong, and the results showed that Wow, the new toffee was the best! Consumers are most likely to buy!
How to position such a good product?
Or is it positioned as a traditional toffee and mainly engaged in the bulk candy market, just like the toffee? Nowadays, the bulk candy market has been shrinking sharply, and the sales season is getting shorter and shorter. Moreover, bulk candy relies on a variety of products to win, and it is difficult for one or a series of new products to gain a larger market only in bulk. And traditional candy has also been transformed into bagged, boxed and other leisure foods. The new toffee must be mainly bagged and take the route of snack food.
In order to reflect the "high quality-high price", it is finally determined that Wowo New Milk Candy adopts the medium and high-grade pricing strategy, positioning it as a medium and high-grade fashion casual candy, and taking 15-24-year-old fashion women with certain spending power as the main target consumer group.
So what is used to support this price? Just because of high cost, patented technology and delicious food, consumers may not buy it.
Ye Maozhong, who just found a good feeling in Yake V9 vitamin candy project, popped up three words: Be a concept!
At that time, a large number of health care products enterprises such as Shenzhen Neptune made great efforts to promote "bovine colostrum". With a large number of TV advertisements of "bovine colostrum" and a large number of soft articles in newspapers, the trend of "bovine colostrum" in China market was wave after wave.
"This concept is worth a try. Let's make cow colostrum toffee!" Ye Maozhong this fellow spoke again.
In fact, these are the stories before the market research in five cities in April. The concept, product positioning and pricing strategy of "bovine colostrum" were all designed in that market research. However, the results of the survey have disappointed everyone. Not many consumers are willing to pay more for adding "bovine colostrum" to milk candy! Other concepts such as adding calcium and adding vitamin C are not accepted by consumers. The road to concept is impassable!
If there is no new road, take the existing one.
The results of market research have strengthened such confidence. Consumers believe that eating milk candy means eating the original flavor, and the stronger the milk flavor, the better. Pure, fragrant, thick, smooth, soft and tough are the six most prominent indexes to evaluate a good toffee.
Wow, these six indicators of new toffee are second to none, and the product concept and product name will come out at once: Wow, all-round toffee!
However, at that time, it was the season when health care products were "raging", and "omnipotence" was too easy to let.
People associate with "function"; The 2004 Athens Olympic Games is just around the corner, and words such as "decathlon" and "all-around gymnastics" are endless. "Almighty toffee" sounds uncomfortable.
At a regular communication meeting in May, this question was put on the conference table of Ye Maozhong marketing planning agencies on the 25th floor of Suzhou River. Ye Maozhong this fellow chin cupped in one hand, eyes staring, a long time did not participate in the discussion. For a moment, this fellow took off his duckbill hat and broke the silence: "All-around toffee is not good. I think we can consider calling it 360-degree toffee." Using an abstract' 360 degrees' to reflect the all-round concept, and combining' 360 degrees' with milk candy is relatively new, different from ordinary candy, and it is easy to attract consumers' attention by using communication. "
"good! Oh, 360 degrees of toffee! " The audience embraced warm applause.
At the meeting that day, after further intense discussion, the new toffee was finally named: 360 pure toffee.
The taste of the product is determined to be two: original taste (milk taste) and chocolate taste, and the original taste is the main one.
The next thing to consider is packaging design and dissemination. These two tasks are time-consuming and laborious. In order to be listed before the peak season of candy consumption in September, these two tasks must be carried out simultaneously.
Product positioning determines the communication direction, and the target consumer group determines the communication strategy.
How to express "fashion", "high-end" and "leisure", attract the attention of female consumers aged 15-24, and realize the breakthrough from mid-range brands to medium-high-end brands?