The "refurbishment" of old brands also depends on innovation

In recent years, with the emergence of a large number of new brands, the brand aging phenomenon of many large enterprises is serious, and they are facing the risk of
losing users and markets.
Under this situation, there are still brands that get rid of the "old fashion", break the barriers of the circle, and walk out of a "renovation" road with more content, more innovative and more dynamic marketing actions, and integrate into the mainstream market
of young people.

The midlife crisis is creeping in

Recently, China Want Want Holdings Co.
, Ltd.
released the first half of the fiscal year performance report, as of September 30, 2022, the total revenue decreased by 4.
8% from the same period last year to 10.
83 billion yuan, and the net profit decreased by 23.
6% from the same period last year to 1.
6 billion yuan; Gross margin decreased 4% from the same period last year to 42.
8%.

In fact, not only in fiscal 2022, but also in recent years, Want Want's total revenue and net profit attributable to the parent have fluctuated significantly, and the operating conditions are not stable
.
According to Wind data, from FY2017 to FY2021, Want Want Total Revenue Growth was 26.
28%, 2.
77%, -2.
99%, 8.
77% and 9.
31%, respectively; The growth rate of net profit attributable to the parent was 3.
31%, 15.
56%, 10.
76%, 6.
98% and 6.
05%
respectively.

The decline in revenue was due to a significant
decline in dairy beverages, which accounted for the majority of revenue.
From the perspective of product classification, the company's revenue from dairy and beverages, snack food, rice crackers and other products was 5.
69 billion yuan, 3.
08 billion yuan, 1.
97 billion yuan and 88.
836 million yuan
respectively.
Among them, rice crackers benefited from the recovery of sales growth in overseas markets, driving overall revenue up 5.
1% year-on-year, snack food revenue up 7.
1% year-on-year, and dairy and beverage revenue down 13.
2%
year-on-year.

In fact, Want Want is a common problem faced by many domestic enterprises, traditional products tend to age, showing problems such as product aging, brand aging and marketing model aging, and new product sales are sluggish
.
With the emergence of new influencer brands and the popularity of personalized needs, young consumers are abandoning
old brands.
In the face of such a huge impact of the times, old brands are falling into an anxious "mid-life crisis"
.

Pan Helin, executive dean of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, believes that the advantage of time-honored brands is that they have brand precipitation and long-term performance accumulation, but the disadvantage is that they do not have the support of the new generation of brand experience and cost performance
.

Fancy marketing promotes brand culture

Old brands and new marketing are not "old and new" opposites
.
Time-honored brands have good brand trust, product characteristics are also more obvious, and have rich imagination space
in marketing.
In addition to Want Want, in the past two years, many long-established brands have gradually moved towards the road of "renovation", and the most common way is cross-border joint marketing
.
For example, the White Rabbit Milk Candy and Smell Library launched the "White Rabbit Perfume", China Toothpaste and Peppa Pig IP jointly launched a customized version of the toothpaste gift box, and Moutai Wine cross-border launched an ice cream of 66 yuan a cup
.
"The reason why cross-border marketing is constantly tried is because with the rise of consumer demand in the Z generation, it is becoming more and more difficult for traditional brands to capture the hearts
of young people.
" An industry insider said
.
This may also be the helpless move
of long-established brands.

As Generation Z becomes mainstream consumers, traditional brands will face several dilemmas
.
First, the credibility and authority of the brand are weakening
.
The new generation of young people is not very much after so-called "authoritative brands", they do not like to be swept by advertisements, and they hate being repeatedly taught what brands
to buy.
Behind this is the general mentality of Generation Z: you are strong as you are, anyway, I am invincible
.
Second, it becomes more difficult for brands to capture consumers through content
.
Gen Z's preferences for marketing content are very different
from the content focus of traditional brands.
Compared with traditional advertising, online word-of-mouth marketing has more opportunities to save costs for brands and accurately "pinch" consumers; At the same time, the speed of content change is getting faster
.
Maybe a popular content that became an "old terrier"
in just a week.
Gone are the days when an ad could be looped on major TV stations for a long time
.

In addition, consumer purchase channels are fragmented and
content-based.
"Immediate purchase" is a form of purchase that matches Generation Z, but the channel capabilities of traditional brands are mostly concentrated on offline and online traditional platforms, which is very different
from the purchasing habits of young people.
Experts said that as the talents of VC institutions have come out to start their own businesses, there are more and more new domestic brands, and with the background blessing of the founders of these brands, their relationship with channels such as Douyin Kuaishou is also very good, which has more advantages
than traditional brands online.

Based on these dilemmas, long-established brands with a long history have embarked on the road of cross-border co-branding in order to "old wine in new bottles" and capture more consumers
.

Expand categories and explore brand culture

The core of Restoration is product iteration, but it cannot be blindly iterated
.
Zhu Danpeng, vice president of Guangdong Food Safety Promotion Association, believes that how to effectively graft and connect traditional products with the core needs and demands of the new generation has become a problem
that enterprises must solve.
The consumption thinking and consumption behavior of the new generation group have undergone great changes, which has been forcing enterprises to continuously innovate, upgrade and iterate
.

A few days ago, China Post announced that it would enter the milk tea industry, and opened "postal oxygen tea" on the basis of the original postal points, and the topic of postal oxygen tea on Weibo has been read more than 100 million, which reflects that the form of postal + milk tea has stepped on the preferences of consumers
.
By opening a milk tea shop, Post breaks consumers' inherent cognition that China Post only does express delivery, and at the same time uses the simple packaging of milk tea and the price close to the people to show its own state-owned enterprise color, which not only conforms to the existing brand culture, but also achieves cultural innovation, so that consumers realize that China Post is also a brand
with the characteristics of the times and cultural accumulation with the growth of New China.

At the first First Light Brand Carnival, six important brands under First Light Holdings, including Shuanghesheng, Longhui, Arctic Ocean, Yili, Goldfish and Chinese Wine, made new appearances
.
With "history and innovation" as the main line and "culture and technology" as the carrier, a light brand and product release are intertwined, presenting the innovative development of time-honored brands and creating a shining consumer business card
of the capital's economy.
It is worth mentioning that in this carnival, the Arctic Ocean brand specially brought its new lemonade
.
This is another product
that Arctic Ocean continues to focus on the "juice soda" sub-category.
Starting from the aspects of high appearance and youthfulness, with exquisite packaging, three-dimensional taste and healthy taste
that is more in line with the preferences of young people.

While preserving tradition and stabilizing heritage, it is more necessary to jump out of the "old" impression
in a modern way.
With the increasing local awareness and cultural self-confidence, Chinese consumers' acceptance and love of domestic products are increasing day by day, which has promoted profound changes
in Chinese brands both in the local consumer market and in the global competition pattern.
With the increasing national self-confidence, young consumers' brand confidence has also increased, Chinese people's self-confidence in their own culture has improved, and consumption concepts have also changed, and young groups have become more positive and pragmatic in their cognitive attitude towards brands, and no longer blindly pursue big brands; At the same time, the concept of imported quality is also being reversed, and young people are more willing to choose individuality and national fashion products to highlight their fashion taste
.

(Gao Na comprehensive collation)

China Food News (December 27, 2022, version 08).

(Responsible editor: Gao Na)