The white elephant was snatched away from the shelves of wild consumption, and suddenly became popular, becoming another domestic brand that was "wild consumption" after Red Star Hongxing Erke and Bee Flower. Netizens poured into the live broadcast room and online shop of white elephant instant noodles. The white elephant was robbed when it met a wild consumer shelf.

The white elephant was robbed of the shelf of wild consumption 1 or became the biggest winner of the "pothole sauerkraut" incident, welcoming a new wave of "wild consumption".

On the evening of March 15, Baixiang issued a statement saying that Baixiang had never cooperated with Hunan Qieqi vegetable industry, and netizens praised it one after another, saying that "the blessing of Baixiang is yet to come".

On March 18, the white elephant continued to fire out of the circle. The topic of "One-third of white elephant employees are disabled" rushed to the hot search list. According to media reports, one third of Baixiang's employees are disabled, and Baixiang also calls them "self-reliant people", which is quite touching. Previously, this topic has attracted attention during the Beijing Winter Paralympics.

Under the superposition of multiple factors, the consumption boom of white elephant instant noodles has been set off on the Internet, and the white elephant has been treated as always in Hongxing Erke. Tens of thousands of consumers poured into the white elephant live broadcast room, and the goods were snapped up. Today, the official store of White Elephant Tmall is out of stock, and the pre-sale begins directly.

As a local enterprise in Henan, Baixiang is a veteran of the instant noodle industry. Is this explosion a flash in the pan, or can it change the competitive pattern of the instant noodle market? Under the attack of Master Kong and Uni-President, can the White Elephant counterattack?

Promoted to "the light of domestic products"

The popularity of white elephants can be traced back to the Beijing Paralympic Winter Games. During the activity, the white elephant accidentally boarded the hot search because one-third of the employees were disabled. After that, the white elephant instant noodles began to be planted by netizens.

On March 9, White Elephant also issued an announcement to remind consumers to buy as much as they eat and not to waste. He also said that the recent surge in orders, the factory launched an emergency plan to fully produce and deliver, and strive to deliver white elephant products to thousands of families in need as quickly as possible.

According to the data of Vipshop, since the opening of the Paralympic Games on March 4, the sales of white elephant products in Vipshop have soared by nearly 200%.

The "potherb pickled cabbage" incident exposed at the 3 15 party pushed the white elephant to the "highlight moment" and successively boarded the hot search list, and the attention increased rapidly. On March 18, the reporter of Time Weekly noticed that almost all the goods in the official flagship store of White Elephant Tmall were out of stock, and the pre-sale period was as long as 15 days.

White Elephant is a veritable time-honored domestic product, and its brand development history is closely related to Yao Zhongliang, chairman and CEO of White Elephant.

In the early 1990s, Yao Zhongliang, who was already a department-level cadre of Henan Grain Department, came to a small factory under the Grain Department as the general manager. This small factory is a burden, and its fate changes with it.

At the beginning of his business, Yao Zhongliang often rode a broken tricycle and took his employees to sell white elephant instant noodles along the street. Recalling the beginning of starting a business, Yao Zhongliang summed it up with "440,000": "I traveled all over Qian Shan, suffered a lot, and tried a thousand words to send white elephants to thousands of households."

(Yao Zhongliang Image source: National People's Congress Construction Magazine)

In 2000, the sales of white elephant instant noodles reached nearly 654.38 billion yuan. In 2003, Baixiang took the lead in developing the first bone soup instant noodle "1 Yuan Da Gu Mian" in China, and became the pioneer and leading brand of "bone soup instant noodle" in China.

According to relevant media reports, almost during this period, some Japanese companies put forward a plan of strategic shareholding in White Elephant, but it was rejected. At that time, both Master Kong and the predecessor of Jinmailang (Hualong Noodle Industry) cooperated with Japanese capital.

However, at present, there is no more information to support the statement and exact time of rejecting Japanese investment.

Today, White Elephant has built nine production bases in Henan, Hunan, Shanxi and Shandong, and its products are sold to more than 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government and exported overseas. Sales in 20 15 exceeded 5 billion yuan.

Tianyancha APP food safety information shows that the products produced by Baixiang affiliated enterprises for Baixiang Food Co., Ltd. have been sampled more than 60 times, and all the results are qualified; Its investment companies and branches also involved nearly 300 random inspections, and all the results were qualified.

The competitive pattern is difficult to break.

Although the feelings are good, the white elephant wants to pursue victory and maintain its popularity, and it also needs product strength and brand strength.

Previously, the sports brand Red Star Hongxing Erke and the daily chemical brand Bee Flower also gained high popularity, but they all returned to calm, and the number of viewers and sales in the live broadcast room declined. After all, "wild consumption" will always return to rationality.

Zhu, a food industry analyst in China, believes that with the enhancement of Chinese national self-confidence and national self-confidence, as well as the growing plot of the national tide in the whole environment, the charity behavior of the white elephant has been exaggerated, resulting in the "broken circle" of the white elephant. But this can better reflect the brand's social responsibility than the product itself. As far as the market is concerned, the overall development of white elephants is not very smooth.

The development of White Elephant is not smooth sailing, and it ranks the second echelon in market share. It is understood that from 2002 to 2006, the white elephant was reorganized, which became the most difficult five years in its development. At this time, Master Kong, Uni-President and other enterprises entered a high-speed expansion, and the white elephant was left behind.

According to the data of the convenience food conference, in 2020, the sales of Master Kong, Uni-President and Jinmailang in the instant noodle market in Chinese mainland accounted for 46%, 15% and1%respectively, maintaining the top three positions. The share of white elephants is less than 10%, only 7%, ranking fourth.

In recent years, White Elephant has launched some new products, trying to cross the border.

At the 202 1 convenience food conference, the white elephant brought Fuxi steamed bread, steamed buns and other quick-frozen noodle products. In addition to quick-frozen food, Baixiang has also been involved in self-heating hot pot, buckwheat vermicelli, universal soup base, lazy cooking bag, turkey noodles, bone soup and rice.

The white elephant was robbed of wild consumer shelves. 17 At 8 o'clock in the evening of March, in a shop in Luohe, Henan Province, customers came from time to time to ask if there were any white elephant instant noodles.

Yu Jie is the owner of this shop. He has long been engaged in the wholesale business of instant noodles and drinks. In recent days, different brands of instant noodles have been treated differently-on the same shelf, the types and quantities of instant noodles of Uni-President and Master Kong are more than twice as many as those of white elephants, but at the same time, Uni-President and Master Kong are almost ignored. On the contrary, the white elephant, which had been unknown before, suddenly became a hot potato in the hands of customers.

"Since the beginning of March, the sales of white elephants have gradually increased. Some flavors began to be out of stock these days, prompting several agents, and the other party said that they would wait. " Yu Jie said to Time Finance.

For a long time before, the white elephant was nothing impressive. However, with the exposure of pickled vegetables purchased by Master Kong and Uni-President, two instant noodle giants, at the CCTV 3 15 party, and the news that "one third of the employees of White Elephant are disabled" boarded the hot search, White Elephant suddenly became popular and became another domestic brand that was "consumed crazily" after Red Star Hongxing Erke and Bee Flower.

Netizens poured into the live broadcast room and online shop of white elephant instant noodles. According to the data disclosure of the third-party live broadcast data statistics platform, White Elephant officially added nearly 300,000 fans, and the live broadcast sales reached more than 7.7 million yuan. In the past three months, the sales of official white elephant Tik Tok was only130,000 yuan.

Online, the enthusiasm of consumers is also very high. In a supermarket in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, a young girl is choosing instant noodles in front of the shelves. She opened Tik Tok and photographed the scene in the store and the process of buying instant noodles by herself. After the shooting, she wrote in the middle of the picture: "The instant noodles will be our own, and the Henan girl will support her hometown enterprises with her own actions, and the domestic white elephant will rise!"

However, overnight popularity is hard to resist the cruelty of reality, and Yu Jie's mood is somewhat complicated. "20 10 years ago, the white elephant was able to wrestle with Master Kong and Unity. After so many years, it's still a little sad to see that it can't sell other brands, because its quality is really good. I hope that these domestic products will continue to rise in the future. "

White elephants are also consumed in the wild.

After the white elephant "goes out of the circle", the anchor with the goods will bind the brands such as White Elephant, Hongxing Hongxing Erke and Huiyuan Juice together to form a special domestic product.

During the Beijing Winter Paralympics, some netizens described their daily life as follows: in the morning, they went to Hongxing Hongxing Erke Live Studio to grab shoes, at noon, they ordered honey snow and ice city to take out food, in the afternoon, they went to Huiyuan Live Studio to buy juice, and at night, they watched the China Olympic Games with a bucket of white elephant instant noodles.

In Tik Tok, search the live broadcast column with "instant noodles". In addition to the official live broadcast room of White Elephant, there are also many anchors selling instant noodles of White Elephant.

On March 18, a merchant started the first live broadcast on Tik Tok. He pointed the camera at the white elephant instant noodles on the shelf and said it was his first live broadcast. "I've sorted out my inventory these days, and now I'm trying to add the goods to the Tik Tok store. Our domestic products have finally gone up in price. Welcome everyone to buy. " In another live broadcast room, an anchor selling goods also posted a label of "support domestic products, white elephants come on" in the live broadcast room.

In the official live broadcast room of Tik Tok White Elephant, people kept asking when it would be delivered. Some people lamented, "The white elephant is too low-key and pragmatic, and now it is finally on fire!" ; Others said, "I just got paid." "White elephants don't sell out of stock, and everyone here is responsible."

The instant noodles in the official live broadcast room of Tik Tok White Elephant are out of stock, and all products have been changed to pre-sale status. The delivery date of instant noodles was extended to April 3, and some products were even adjusted to April 18. In White Elephant Tmall flagship store, the most popular delicious instant noodles in soup have sold more than 400,000 pieces per month, and the delivery time has been adjusted to 15 days after payment.

The sudden enthusiasm for consumption caught the white elephant off guard. In the official live broadcast room of White Elephant Tik Tok, the anchor constantly reminded consumers to consume rationally, and the White Elephant Tmall flagship store even added the option of "eat as much as you want" on the order page.

However, the attention that the white elephant received this time was far less than the spectacular scene of millions of people pouring into the live broadcast room of Red Star Hongxing Erke last July, with sales exceeding 100 million. Time Finance noticed that on March 18, the number of online users in the live broadcast room of the official flagship store of Tik Tok White Elephant remained around 2,000, ranking 50th on the list of goods brought that day. Another live broadcast room in Tik Tok, named White Elephant Food Official Store, has a slightly higher popularity, with about 6,000 online people, ranking eighth in the list of goods brought that day.

On March 18, Time Finance called Baixiang Group about its recent sudden popularity and product sales, but no one answered the phone.

Cann't swallow master kong's unified dish

White Elephant is headquartered in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, which is also the main production base of instant noodles in China. Domestic famous instant noodle brands, such as Nanjiecun, Yuzhu, Tian Fang and Smet, are all produced in Henan.

As the head instant noodle brand in Henan, White Elephant was once a smash hit. Baixiang, founded in 1997, is the first instant noodle king in China. In 2003, Baixiang took the lead in introducing instant noodles with bone soup, which became the taste "wind vane" of the instant noodle market at that time. According to beijing business today Today, in 2007, the comprehensive sales revenue of white elephants reached 4 billion yuan, and the revenue of 20 13 reached 5 billion yuan.

After a period of time, Master Kong and Uni-President ran very fast, while the white elephant was caught in a scuffle with Jinmailang. When competing with Jinmailang, Baixiang adjusted the original bagged noodles with a unit price of 1.3 yuan, and at the same time reduced the price to 1 yuan. At that time, Jin Mailang gave up the price band of 1 yuan because of the rising price of instant noodle raw materials, and went all out to attack the city and declare war on Master Kong in the middle and high-end market.

Because of this, the original share of Jinmailang in the low-end market was almost completely swallowed up by the white elephant. But the white elephant failed to continue the price advantage. Since then, White Elephant has positioned itself as a "boneface expert" and launched boneface in 2.5 yuan at a unit price, while Master Kong, who was already a market leader at that time, kept the price within 2 yuan.

Since then, the development of white elephants has begun to decline. In 20 14, the IPO of Baixiang collapsed, before moving to Beijing headquarters, and then withdrawing to Henan, the base camp.

With the story of rejecting Japanese stocks that year, Baixiang established the image of national feelings and instantly won the favor of the public.

For the white elephant, it is undoubtedly an excellent propaganda node at the moment, but just like the red star Hongxing Erke before, the tide will rise and fall one day. The challenge faced by the white elephant cannot be solved by one or two waves of publicity.

According to the information of Baixiang official website, Baixiang Food has formed the layout of high-quality flour products production bases in Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Sichuan, Jilin, Shanxi and other provinces 12. In terms of production strength, Baixiang has more than 90 instant noodle production lines, with nearly 65.438+0.2 million sales terminals and an annual output of nearly 65.438+0 billion packets of instant noodles, covering 30 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and overseas regions.

Despite this, the white elephant still failed to reproduce its previous glory. According to the data of the convenience food conference, in 2020, the market shares of Master Kong, Uni-President and Jinmailang are 46%, 15% and1%respectively, and the share of white elephants is only 7%, ranking fourth.

"White elephants have a certain degree of aging in terms of brands, products, channels, teams and customers. Only relying on patriotism, including helping the disabled, can only earn short-term word of mouth. " Zhu, a food industry analyst, told me that white elephants are unlikely to turn short-term heat into long-term market sales.

Another person familiar with White Elephant Instant Noodles also pointed out to Time Finance that White Elephant has actually lost its qualification to compete with Master Kong and Uni-President. This time, Master Kong and Uni-President have been hit by the problem of sauerkraut, which is a good opportunity for Baixiang, but it has no strength to take over the market.

"The channel is strong in the north and weak in the south, which is limited to Henan, Hebei, Shanxi and Shandong provinces. In contrast, the dominance of offline channels of Master Kong, Uni-President and Jinmailang is still very strong, and the white elephant may only try to explore online. " The industry insider said.

Nowadays, fast food no longer belongs to the category of "eating noodles". In recent years, with the upsurge of consumption upgrading, many instant noodle brands have been born among online celebrities, such as Lamian Noodles Mianshuo and Akuan. The White Elephant once told Standard Lamian Noodles that it launched the brand of "Fresh Noodles Chuan", but it did not cause much sensation. Previously, White Elephant also entered the pasta industry and opened more than 150 Fuxi noodle workshop chain stores, but these stores failed to leave Henan in the end.

(At the request of the interviewee, Yu Jie is a pseudonym)

The white elephant was robbed of the wild consumer shelves. 3 "Please consume rationally. Now the whole network is out of stock, and the presses of the factory owners are smoking! "

In the Taobao live broadcast room of Baixiang these days, even though the anchor kept persuading, the message area was screened: "Pet! Buy wild and eat wild ","eat noodles and eat white elephant instant noodles "and" support white elephant "... This led to the skyrocketing sales of white elephant Tmall flagship store, the inventory was emptied, and many products were even sold out directly.

White elephant officials also issued a statement saying that the recent surge in orders has brought great responsibility and pressure to the factory, and an emergency plan has been launched. The last time such a hot scene was in the live broadcast room of Hongxing Erke after the flood in Henan last year.

On March 6th, the third day of the opening of the Beijing Paralympic Games, the topic of # White Elephant # rushed to Weibo for hot search. At that time, many people returned to unknown so and suddenly realized that this Henan food enterprise had been committed to helping disabled people find jobs, and one third of its employees were disabled.

After the Beijing Winter Paralympics was circled, many "low-key" deeds of Baixiang moved netizens: insisting on domestic production and refusing Japanese acquisition, and donating money to Wuhan, Henan ... This made Baixiang quickly become a new "light of domestic products", and netizens flocked to Baixiang online store like a flood.

On March 18, the topic # One-third of the employees of White Elephant are disabled # boarded the hot search in Weibo again. "Tianxia Online Merchants" found that at present, all the products in the flagship store of White Elephant Tmall show pre-sale, and they can only be delivered within 15 days after payment; At the same time, the latest daily audience of the White Elephant Taobao Live Room is more than ten times that before the opening of the Beijing Winter Paralympics.

Always positioned in the traditional convenience market, the white elephant with the market share of "the fourth child" suddenly turned red, stirring this long-lost "Jianghu" and "the light of domestic products". How many people can it bear this time?

"Wild consumption" makes the white elephant sell out of stock all over the network

Recently, the number of fans of Tmall White Elephant flagship store has increased by 30,000-90,000 every day. Among them, the "Soup Delicious" series of bagged instant noodles has occupied the first place in the Tmall instant noodle sales list for a week in a row, and can sell more than 4 million packages a month. At present, all the white elephant products ordered are pre-sold, and can only be delivered within 15 days after payment.

In the comment area of Buyers Show, many netizens who were searched by the hot search circle left a message: "I bought it in the attitude of supporting domestic products and supporting the employment of disabled people." "Conscience enterprises deserve support!"

The enthusiasm of netizens also continued to the live broadcast room. The reporter of "World Online Merchants" found that the number of daily viewers of the White Elephant Taobao Live Room has increased since the opening of the Beijing Winter Paralympics, and the number of viewers on March 16 has reached more than ten times. Tik Tok's live room is equally lively. According to the mother's data, the sales volume of White Elephant Live has been doubled since March.

Especially after the "3. 15 Party" exposed "Pit Pickled Sauerkraut", when White Elephant cooperated with flag-cutting sauerkraut on the Weibo, he responded strongly: "In short, don't worry if you don't cooperate, you are not afraid of the shadow." After boarding the hot search again, the circled netizens immediately rushed to the live broadcast room and shouted: "I will never eat old altar sauerkraut again, and I will only eat white elephants in the future."

However, the "wild consumption" of this wave of white elephants is different from the red star Hongxing Erke. Netizens didn't buy from buy buy because of the hot search in the Winter Olympics. More people are still in a relatively rational wait-and-see attitude.

During this period, netizens posted information such as White Elephant's "barrier-free production line specially designed for disabled employees" and "donating money and materials during the rainstorm in Henan". According to Wei, the person in charge of Baixiang Food, during the rainstorm in Henan last July, Baixiang Food donated 5 million yuan in cash and a batch of materials to support the first-line rescue work.

"Good brand" makes the sales of white elephants rise steadily, while "3. 15" makes people's impression of white elephants rise from emotional brand to quality, safety and reassurance, which not only continues to consolidate its positive brand image, but also makes its reputation and sales by going up one flight of stairs.

The white elephant turns red and there are traces to follow.

The exposure of "pit pickled sauerkraut" opened the corner of instant noodles.

In recent years, the instant noodle market has gradually fallen into a stable pattern. The data shows that in 2020, the sales of Master Kong and Uni-President accounted for 46% and 15% of the domestic market, while Jinmailang and Baixiang ranked third and fourth accounted for 1 1% and 7% respectively.

Due to factors such as take-away squeeze and low market dividend, instant noodles have become an old category, and new brands have no intention of investing huge sums of money to subvert the pattern and compete for the leading position. Master Kong and Uni-President, who are firmly in the top spot, have also lost their enthusiasm for using taste, marketing and channels to conquer the world: the main taste is difficult to create new explosions, and the online channel expansion is also tepid. In Tmall, Master Kong and Uni-President flagship store, the total number of fans is less than half that of the new fast food brand "Lamian Noodles Shuo", and there is no obvious difference in single product sales.

Photo "World Online Merchants" Huang She

The popularity of the white elephant is related to consumers' pursuit of "different experiences and turning to other tastes and brands". The white elephant, which has been seeking change and innovation, seized this opportunity.

The White Elephant was originally a subordinate enterprise of the local grain department in Henan Province, but its operating condition is not very good. At that time, Yao Zhongliang, a staff member of the food system, was ordered to manage the white elephant in an emergency. 1997, Baixiang Food Co., Ltd. was formally established.

At that time, faced with the situation of making ends meet for years, the white elephant could only "save the country by curve" and run into the sinking market. Yao Zhongliang once took workers to the streets to sell, so that the inexpensive white elephant could find a group of fans and turn losses into profits. Later, after reorganization, the performance declined, and the instant noodle market changed again. Yao Zhongliang returned to the white elephant and put forward the concept of "nutrition". A bowl of "big bone noodles" made the white elephant get attention again.

Although it failed to occupy the supermarket shelves in first-and second-tier cities, the white elephant did not stop exploring the differentiated circle powder. In terms of product layout, White Elephant not only focuses on taste, but also develops a series of soup noodles with diverse tastes, such as "Soup is delicious" series, big bone noodles series, mixed noodles with regional characteristics and Korean turkey noodles series. In addition, it also cooperates with single food to develop products such as noodles, plates and rock giant apes to create a young and fresh image.

Picture white elephant official micro

This allows the white elephant to pull back the situation through online force. Since 2020, Baixiang has carried out extensive online business, moved all kinds of pasta products popular with consumers to e-commerce and social platforms, and opened up global consumption channels. Last year, the sales of White Elephant on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, JD.COM and Pinduoduo increased rapidly. Driven by live broadcasts by celebrities such as Tamia Liu and Michael Chen, online sales will increase by 76% year-on-year in 2020, becoming the dark horse of e-commerce in traditional instant noodles.

This time, through the live broadcast room and e-commerce platform, we caught the two waves of crazy consumption fever of the Paralympic Games and the "3. 15 party", which reflected the advantages of the online layout of Baixiang. On the short video platform where young people gather, the turnover and sales record of White Elephant also surpassed those of Master Kong, Uni-President and Jinmailang.

How far is the "light of domestic products" from the real counterattack?

China has always been the largest consumer of instant noodles in the world. According to the statistics of the World Instant Noodles Association, in 2020, China consumed 46.35 billion instant noodles, accounting for 40% of the global sales, ranking first in the world. Although it is the fourth instant noodle brand in the domestic market share, Baixiang can also win an annual turnover of more than 5 billion yuan.

However, in the market where the dividend of instant noodles is gradually fading, it is not easy for white elephants to break through before the ban of industry giants and the entry of overseas brands, and after the emergence of a variety of new fast-moving foods such as homemade pots and snail powder.

The main revenue is still hovering in the low-price market. The long-term attack of small counties in the third and fourth tier has made the brand upgrade of Baixiang face difficulties: it once played the slogan of "Fresh Noodles" that Lamian Noodles said, and gradually withdrew from the market due to unsatisfactory sales; The single package price of the "Soup is delicious" series with the highest sales volume of white elephants in 2.7 yuan can reach 4 million packages in Tmall;

However, taking the high-end route, the price of a barrel is about 12 yuan, and the monthly sales of the brand product "Guandong Boil" series is only1.5000 barrels. The consumer market is obviously more willing to pay for cheap white elephant products, which also makes it difficult for the brand image of white elephant to get rid of the label of market sinking.

Picture white elephant official micro

If we only rely on temporary "fanaticism", the brand's attention and sales will eventually return to calm after the enthusiasm of consumers recedes.

For an instant noodle brand, product strength and influence are the result of long-term accumulation. Throughout the world, top instant noodle brands have not only made great efforts in product development and design, but also got rid of the image of cheap food. On the contrary, they have become the representatives of young people's fashion tastes and popular symbols embedded in Oscar movies and classic TV dramas.

As a domestic instant noodle brand, White Elephant has its merits. However, in order to really counterattack, we need to make products with heart, develop explosions that better represent people's tastes and minds, and open more similar offline channels to upgrade the brand image. In this way, the white elephant may usher in a lasting outbreak.