Case Analysis of Beer Marketing _ Case Analysis of Beer Sales (2)

Case of Beer Marketing (3) Budweiser Beer If you say that a bottle of beer has a memory, tell you whether the consumer you bought and tasted is male or female, how old he is, what nationality he belongs to, what degree of education he has received, and even tell you what his personality characteristics are. Can you believe it?

Don't believe it? Then try Budweiser beer and show a typical business logic demonstrator with the trajectory of a bottle of beer.

Cheng Yeren, president of Budweiser China, said that Budweiser's share in the domestic high-end beer market has exceeded 50%. Although Budweiser's output ranking is estimated to be close to 20th, its sales volume is probably 5th or 6th? .

When it comes to Budweiser's success, people always seem to attribute it to advertising, believing that advertising has successfully shaped Budweiser's brand image and locked in a group of loyal consumers. However, as we all know, Budweiser's success cannot be ignored? Secret weapon? That's its unique distribution system.

Where is the marketing expense invested?

Open the website of Budweiser.com Red and Black Tone, which includes not only the basic introduction of beer, but also about? Entertainment? 、? Music? And then what? Exercise? The classified catalogue of. Netizens can not only see the performances and introductions of local and international orchestras sponsored by Budweiser, but also see the release of music albums.

As the only beer manufacturer that introduces music and sports on its website, sponsoring these two activities seems to be one of the focuses of Budweiser. From the FIFA World Cup to F 1 car racing, from the Premier League to the Olympic Games, Budweiser has played a brand image in line with sports spirit in world sports events. In recent two or three years, Budweiser Beer has turned its annual marketing offensive theme in China to the two-way development of sports and music.

Of course, this also means that hundreds of millions of marketing investments in advertising, distribution and promotion begin to quietly change direction every year. ? From last year's consumer survey, we confirmed that concerts and sports events can also affect consumers of high-end beer in China, especially those in southern cities, so we began to switch the focus of the market offensive. ? Cheng Yeren, head of Budweiser in China and managing director of Anheuser-Busch Asia Limited in Greater China, said.

Budweiser beer has been the most invested in the marketing expenses of China beer industry, but how to use these marketing expenses more efficiently? Cheng Yeren believes that the planning process of Anheuser-Busch Company, which he relied on for more than 65,438+000 years, can find the accurate answer to this question.

Planning is a word that Cheng Yeren often talks about. Budweiser advocates making corresponding market plans according to the actual situation. ? Manpower and transportation capacity are relatively easy to do, but market investment is more difficult to do, requiring more detailed work. ? Cheng Yeren said, for example, if Budweiser beer sales increase by 20%, should TV advertising investment increase by 20%?

? You can't be so rude. Do you want to play CCTV or local TV? You have to look at the growth of media investment in the history of CCTV and the strength of your competitors in media investment. I believe that every company has different views on the market and different ways to invest in the market, but we must pay attention to a methodology and the method must be detailed enough. Because only in this way can the whole decision-making process be done thoroughly. ?

Cheng Yeren believes that the process of making plans has always been Budweiser's core advantage. Every TV advertisement and concert promotion should reflect this core advantage.

Study on quantitative determination of 100% yield

Unlike low-grade beer, which reduces costs by scale, and then establishes local breweries to win the market by price, the whole way of thinking and practice of high-grade beer is completely another world.

In Budweiser, market research has undoubtedly become the origin of Anheuser-Busch's marketing plan.

Budweiser Beer (China) has more than a dozen marketers and two full-time researchers, but these two researchers are also responsible for the coordination between China and a large research team of American Anheuser-Busch Company.

? 100% Our production is based on quantity, so Budweiser needs to do too much market research every year. Although the proportion of research expenses in our market expenses is not very large, we put the most energy into it. ? Cheng yeren said.

Generally speaking, Budweiser outsources research data collection to professional market research institutions, and uses its own research team to process and analyze the data. Cheng Yeren mentioned two aspects that should be paid most attention to when doing research. First, when conducting large-scale research, we must ensure that the most effective methods are adopted according to the characteristics of the products; Secondly, it is very important to be the host in the hot focus customer interview in FMCG industry.

? This person is not good and the whole research direction may be misled. This involves a lot of previous experience and the methods of investigation and research. ? Cheng yeren said. He often asked Budweiser's marketers and regional business executives to participate in the research process, and sometimes even personally participated in the focus customer interviews as the research object, feeling whether the research scene and the host can really bring a real atmosphere, and whether the participants can provide truly instructive data for the market in this atmosphere.

Cheng Yeren disapproves of the direct use of analysis reports by intermediaries, because he assumes that Budweiser employees are more familiar with what certain data means to the specific beer market. In this way, the quality of employees in our company is very important. If he doesn't know much about the market and is not comprehensive, it is easy to be misled to look at this thing. How do you turn data into information and how do you turn information into knowledge? In this regard, apart from a system, the quality of personnel at all levels of the company is very important. ? Cheng Yeren talked about his own experience.

Obviously, Budweiser can not only rely on human resources, but also make full use of the power of information technology in a highly competitive beer industry. They must set up a nationwide sales intelligence system.

Who is tasting Budweiser beer?

In fact, before 1997, the beer industry has been lagging behind other industries in the application of information technology. Dealers and salespeople finish familiar daily work every day, holding a lot of invoices and orders, and then work overtime at night to input these data into the computer, and finally call the brewer to place the final order. Usually, they will summarize these daily data at the end of each month, and then analyze the market by their own ability to see which beer brand is the most popular in the market now.

However, in 1997, Budweiser first broke this convention, and August, the newly appointed chairman of the company (the grandson of Budweiser's founder), vowed to make Budweiser an industry leader in exploring consumer patterns and characteristics. This? The first person to eat crabs? The first step is to change the way most brewers use the Internet to test market information.

Budweiser Beer began to revise the contract with its distributors, explicitly writing the responsibility that the distributors must help the company collect market information into the distribution contract, and asking all distributors to provide information on how their retailers allocate shelf space to various beer brands and which brand has the most eye-catching shelves.

At first, dealers still need to figure out how to collect this information and how to transmit it to Budweiser Beer. Later, because many people used Excel tables to transmit data, it became difficult to manage over time. Budweiser beer cooperated with a software company to develop a software, which unified the data collection work of dealers and simplified the data integration work of dealers. Companies and distributors have gradually realized the importance of this strategy, and the data collection of wholesalers and retail stores has produced a win-win effect.

For example, if you buy a bottle of Budweiser light beer in a bar, the Budweiser dealer may record how much you spent, whether the beer was warm or cold when you bought it, and whether you have a chance to buy a cheaper Budweiser on the street; As for where the beer you bought was brewed, they knew it like the back of their hand.

This is how Budweiser uses these fine and accurate data and information to adjust its market strategy at any time and formulate targeted promotion plans to meet the needs of different consumer groups in the current beer market. At the same time, it can also detect the preference trends of competitors in time, give immediate feedback and respond quickly, create huge competitive advantages and take the lead in striving for market space and time.

Of course, other major beer producers in the world are actually scrambling to collect competitors' information and data. But as the editor-in-chief of the American beer industry magazine, Harry. Schmidt said: Success depends mainly on people's brains. In the whole beer industry, Budweiser is undoubtedly smart, because it can dig out gold from data and know how to effectively use these data to formulate targeted and timely strategies, which is beyond others' reach. ?

Indeed, the most difficult and important thing is to analyze and use data, and Budweiser has done it.

The Art of Control Terminal

1995 Anheuser-Busch bought a beer company in Wuhan for 50 million dollars, established Budweiser (Wuhan) International Beer Co., Ltd., and began to produce Budweiser beer. At that time, the annual output of this production base was 70,000 tons. After four times of capacity expansion, the production scale of Budweiser Beer has now expanded to 400,000 tons, making it one of the highest-selling premium beers in China. At present, the cumulative investment of Anheuser-Busch in China has exceeded 654.38+04 billion US dollars.

However,? Investment and production capacity are only superficial figures. Whether it is original or outsourced, production capacity is meaningful only if it is truly digested by the market. ? Cheng yeren believes.

Then how do you know that Budweiser beer is needed in the market? Quantity? how much is it? Channel system is not only a channel for Budweiser to distribute goods, but also a tentacle for Budweiser to obtain market information. Budweiser divides China's major markets into four regions: North China, East China, Central China and South China. Budweiser beer sales in four regions are distributed to about 65,438+000 wholesalers, and these 65,438+000 wholesalers directly distribute goods to nearly 65,438+000 retailers. More than 40 sales branches and representative offices of Budweiser in these areas provide support for the channel system including wholesalers and agents.

As a matter of fact, in China, as early as 2002, Budweiser had equipped a sales management system for more than 100 wholesalers in the market channel, and Budweiser managers could find out every day how any retailer got goods from wholesalers. ? We can now grasp the sales volume of every retail point, every day and every package. For example, in a small southern restaurant in Shanghai, how many boxes of Budweiser bottles and cans it bought today can be transferred immediately. ? Cheng yeren said.

The management strategy of Budweiser beer terminal channel is also unique. On the one hand, product distribution is carried out through local distributors, and the lower channel of distribution can only be terminal retailers; On the other hand, through a strong sales team, it directly participates in the management between dealers and regional retail terminals, such as managing the product delivery of each chain terminal, holding relevant promotional activities, understanding the sales situation, and notifying dealers to replenish goods in time. In other words, Budweiser's sales team has become a subordinate dealer of the dealer. This strategy enables Budweiser beer to effectively control the market.

? But there is a key point, which is to consider the relationship between centralization and decentralization. ? Cheng Yeren stressed.

The so-called centralization means that Budweiser company formulates a unified marketing strategy tone, such as what form of promotion activities are specifically adopted, how the advertising content is, and so on. Decentralization means how much marketing is invested in each regional market. Wholesalers make suggestions according to local actual conditions and make budgets from bottom to top.

? For example, we have stipulated that the form of concert is the main way to promote activities. Wholesalers all over the country can apply for this activity within this scope and submit their budgets. The headquarters will review its rationality and give it approval. This has overcome the inherent problems of the previous budget distribution system. ? Cheng yeren said.

The relatively flat channel structure and perfect data monitoring system have built a good infrastructure for Budweiser to formulate and implement various market plans.

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Double-edged sword of database marketing

Compared with domestic beer enterprises, Budweiser's marketing and management are undoubtedly refined, the output should be determined by quantity, the advertisement should be quantitatively analyzed and calculated, and the consumer consumption pattern research should spare no effort to do market research and analysis. As for the channels that are difficult to control, intelligent distribution has also been realized. Through their sales management system, you can master the sales data of the terminal anytime and anywhere. By mastering the data and information of these systems, Budweiser can know more accurately who its beer is sold to and how much it costs than other beer companies.

Obviously, Budweiser's marketing management decision-making system is based on data, and every decision they make needs a lot of data to demonstrate and support, which is also a common decision-making model of many multinational enterprises. In a mature and stable market, systematic scientific data can indeed avoid many risks and help enterprises make scientific decisions, which is also a sign of mature enterprise management.

However, in the China market, such a marketing management model may also become a stumbling block to the development of enterprises. China's market is immature, but full of opportunities and challenges. If enterprises want to develop rapidly, they need to seize some special opportunities and realize leap-forward development. However, the decision-making mode of multinational companies has made them lose many opportunities. Their employees are more concerned about not making mistakes than doing better, and their decision makers are more accustomed to speaking with data. But data always represents the past, and it is impossible to analyze and predict what will happen in the future with data.

So when the great marketing opportunities comes, what we see is that more local enterprises are rushing ahead, while multinational enterprises are hard to see. At this time, employees of multinational companies will often tell you that our marketing plan has been completed and there is no additional cost support. In contrast, although domestic enterprises are generally extensive in management and operation, they are poor in making decisions. The flat decision-making system can help enterprises seize opportunities quickly.

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