How did Mengniu, Master Kong, Wahaha, Coca Cola and Procter & Gamble do it?

It's actually quite simple. The most important thing is that these enterprises did not invest blindly, and they all followed the strategy. The trick is "Height determines eyesight". You can refer to the following cases.

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Coca-Cola's Marketing War in China

August 3, 2003. On this midsummer night, the Temple of Heaven in Beijing once again attracted the attention of countless eyes all over the world. BOCOG held a grand unveiling ceremony of the new emblem of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which was directed by Zhang Yimou and attracted worldwide attention.

On the same day, 6,543,800,000 Coca-Cola limited-edition exquisite commemorative cans with the new emblem were officially put on sale. Coca-Cola Company became the first top sponsor of the Beijing Olympic Games to be authorized to use the new Olympic emblem. On that day, the Coca-Cola billboard on Chang 'an Avenue in Beijing was replaced with the latest congratulations advertisement at the fastest speed, and the major shopping malls in Beijing, Shanghai and Qingdao began to decorate all night. Coca-Cola commemorative cans, the emblem of the new Olympic Games, instantly became the latest collection enthusiastically sought after by the public.

Zhao, deputy director of the external relations department of Coca-Cola (China), said that in the next few days, the shipments of Coca-Cola in these cities were five times as high as usual.

As the "chief" brand in the world soft drink industry for nearly a century, Coca-Cola's limelight this time is only a silhouette of its seizing numerous opportunities in the market. In June 2000, three days after the United States announced the partial lifting of sanctions against North Korea for 50 years, a news that interested the world media came from Dandong on the border between China and North Korea: a truck of Coca-Cola was sold to North Korea across the border between China and North Korea. At that time, a Reuters reporter with a keen sense of smell kept an eye on Dandong and caught Coca-Cola being loaded on a North Korean truck. This photo was later widely adopted by the international media.

Coca-Cola's most symbolic preemptive battle in China was its return to the Chinese mainland market in 1979. On the third day after Deng Xiaoping signed the Sino-US Joint Communique, the first batch of 3,000 cases of Coca-Cola products arrived in Guangzhou from Hongkong. After China opened to the outside world, Coca-Cola became the first foreign consumer product to enter Chinese mainland.

If the production of the new emblem commemorative jar reflects a kind of strength, then the commemorative jar for Beijing's successful Olympic bid launched on July 3, 20001year reflects the keen market awareness and foresight of this global enterprise. In order to make the implementation of its own commemorative cans fast and effective, Coca-Cola sent elites from various departments to discuss and plan commemorative cans a long time ago. After a long period of preparation, on July 13, when Samaranch announced that Beijing was the host country of the 2008 Olympic Games, the production line of commemorative cans in Coca-Cola Beijing Bottle Factory was fully started, and 40,000 boxes of commemorative gold cans were sent to major supermarkets and retail stalls overnight by using the residual temperature just retired from the production line.

As the "boss" of the beverage industry for many years, Coca-Cola has formed a highly alert touch and unique and rich operating experience in these major activities in the political, economic and sports fields. Grasping these opportunities may not bring immediate market effect, but it will consolidate its leading brand position in relevant regional markets again and again. According to trout's positioning theory, it occupies the "site" left by consumers' mental resources for such products, and it is difficult for other brands to enter again.

The market performance well proves the importance of this preemptive competition. Wahaha Group, which introduced Coca-Cola, conducted a survey on "Evaluation of Coca-Cola" among consumers all over the country through China Business News. According to the statistics of Beijing Bureau of Statistics, 63% people like Coca-Cola, 34% people like Coca-Cola, and only 3% of Coca-Cola's old rival Pepsi. Coca-Cola and Sprite have been rated as the most popular drinks by consumers in various national surveys for six consecutive years.

As far as the actual market share is concerned, although Pepsi entered the China market only three years late, the market share of the three brands of Pepsi (Pepsi, mirinda and Qixi) in China is only about 40% of that of the three brands of Coca-Cola. In fact, the preconceived rules in regional markets are also very obvious.

Price advantage

Market leaders with economies of scale are usually price leaders. After entering the China market, Coca-Cola has always adopted the penetration pricing method, that is, "keep the low price of concentrated solution for a certain period of time, so that canners can enter the market to the maximum extent, and when the sales expansion is completed, the price of concentrated solution will gradually increase". It is estimated that the price of concentrated solution in China market is about 60% of that in the United States. This strategy has enabled Coca-Cola to create huge profits in Latin America.

The advantage of adopting penetration pricing method is that it not only quickly occupies market share, but also effectively prevents competitors from entering the market at low prices and small profits. PepsiCo is a follower in pricing, and once fell into an unprofitable predicament after price reduction in several joint venture agreements.

The advantage of being a market leader is that in the competition involving price, followers often cannot be indifferent to the leader's behavior, but leaders can maintain a condescending "contempt" for the follower's behavior. For example, Coca-Cola took the lead in introducing Coca-Cola, Sprite and Fanta products with the capacity of 1.5 liter and 2.25 liter respectively to the market during the 9th National Games in 2002. Although Pepsi-Cola immediately introduced Pepsi-Cola and mirinda products with the same capacity to the market, the products launched by Pepsi-Cola were about half a month slower than those of Coca-Cola. At the same time, due to the weak terminal management ability of Pepsi-Cola compared with Coca-Cola, when Pepsi-Cola's added products were sold in the market, the first batch of Coca-Cola's added products were almost sold out. Pepsi's passive follow-up led to the introduction of additional products to the market without thorough planning, which led to the backlog of the original 1.25 liter and 2 liter products.

On the other hand, in the face of the challenger's price offensive, the leaders after the brand position is established can and should use the relatively stable price to enhance the confidence of the channel and express their calmness in the face of the challenger. After the introduction of Wahaha's Extraordinary Coke, an important competitive means is that its price is cheaper than Coca-Cola 10% to 20%. But at least in the primary market, we haven't seen any impact on the price of Coca-Cola.

In 1995, Coca-Cola changed the 3A strategy it believed in for many years into a 3P strategy. The so-called 3A refers to making Coca-Cola products available, acceptable and affordable to consumers, while the so-called 3P refers to ubiquity, preference and price-to-value ratio. You can say that this is only a progress in words, but people with sharp minds can find subtle changes in their values. For example, "affordable" emphasizes making products cheaper on the premise of ensuring quality, but value for money often provides better products at the same price. Consumers who are relatively insensitive to price or have low price elasticity are those who often drink Coke and think of Coca-Cola when talking about it. Therefore, from 3A to 3P, to some extent, it reveals a concept of leading brand strategic defense-not arguing for price and pursuing "customer loyalty".

everywhere

Coca-Cola Company has a famous sales motto: Where there are people, there will be people who are "thirsty" and there will be demand for drinks. Therefore, if the product can reach consumers, it will definitely occupy the market. The so-called "affordable" and "ubiquitous" are also the same.

The concept of "ubiquitous" is embodied in the construction of channels and terminals, that is, it attaches great importance to the coverage of outlets and the recognition of brands by retailers. As early as 1988, when Sprite and Fanta of Coca-Cola landed in Shanghai, there was a lively terminal revolution. Coca-Cola skipped all kinds of intermediate links and directly launched an impact on the terminal: each bottling factory has established a huge sales team, equipped with motorcycles, running around the retail stores in the streets, directly sending products to various terminals, putting in a large number of freezers and cold water tanks, and providing them to retail stores for free.

In the second and third tier construction market which was relatively weak in the past, Coca-Cola began to implement the "10 1 plan" from 200 1 in order to strengthen the control of the channel shipment flow and the price control of the terminal. The main content is to cooperate with distributors in the second and third tier markets to provide hardware and software services for terminal retailers. The hardware includes refrigerators, freezers, display racks and other equipment for retailers, while the software is mainly to train retailers in the knowledge of operating soft drinks. Although this knowledge is insignificant, it has a subtle effect on improving the sales of retailers and the brand image of Coca-Cola. For example, Coke at 3-4 degrees Celsius tastes the best, and the training teacher of Coca-Cola should tell retailers how to always keep a large number of Coke, Sprite and Fanta in the freezer at 3-4 degrees Celsius.

It should be emphasized that the concept of "ubiquitous" not only means a huge sales network and terminal penetration rate, but more importantly, it is a concept of delivering Coca-Cola to people in need at any time. A very enlightening example is a sales project of Coca-Cola in the Middle East in the mid-1990s. At that time, the person in charge of the project found that the sales of Coca-Cola dropped sharply from June to 10 every year. The reason is that Muslims usually fast during Ramadan in 65438+ 10, during which they can't eat anything from dawn to dusk. For an ordinary beverage enterprise, this situation is acceptable. Millions of people don't eat or drink. What's strange about selling so little? But the head of the Coca-Cola Company thinks that this is a lazy idea, because Muslims didn't stop eating and drinking during this period-they just stopped eating and drinking during the day. Therefore, Coca-Cola changed many promotional activities and advertisements to evening during Ramadan. The effect can be imagined.

Specious words

Sergio Ziman, the famous former chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola, praised the campaign strategy of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. When Blair ran for re-election, it was clear to analysts and pollsters-he just said verbally, "This is an era of change, and my government will be different." The change he promised was limited to that narrow platform, and his actions were the same as before. But it was this superficial article that helped him win the election. Because the public is tired of the status quo, they may be interested in anything that changes the status quo. For an old brand of 1 10, consumers' trust and attachment to taste are deeply rooted, but they need new stimuli to stimulate their enthusiasm. This situation certainly needs superficial discussion. So Ziman said, "We should follow Blair's example and change drugs." So Coca-Cola constantly enriches its product positioning by changing the bottle type and providing various sponsorship and other dazzling superficial articles. In addition, as an international brand, Coca-Cola needs to paint more local colors specifically for the China market with strong cultural personality. Judging from a series of operations in recent years, Coca-Cola is trying to combine the two routes into one.

It turns out that Coca-Cola has always impressed consumers in China with its typical American style and American personality. For more than ten years from the early 1980s, American TV advertisements with Chinese explanations were basically used in advertisements, and this strategy was adopted until 1998. However, with the rapid development of soft drink market in China, the marketing strategy of Coca-Cola has changed greatly in 1999. Last year, its TV advertisement launched in China was filmed in China for the first time, designed by China advertising company for the first time, and invited China actors to shoot advertisements for the first time, apparently giving up the consistent American identity for many years. In order to gain more market share, Coca-Cola is making great strides in the localization of China.

In the past, the core of Local-Cola's localization strategy was "2L, 3O", namely, long-term, localization, confidence, opportunity and civic responsibility. Based on these ideas, Coca-Cola's localization strategy has achieved great success. However, Coca-Cola did not adhere to these principles. It took the lead in putting forward the localization idea of "Think local, Act local" in the world. Its main point is to make relevant decisions according to local needs. Most of the more than 230 brands of Coca-Cola Company are regional brands. Coca-Cola India Branch launched a series of juice drinks with local characteristics, such as iced tea, iced coffee, milk and mineral water, to enrich the local market. In the way of promotion, Coca-Cola has gradually changed the past tradition of global unification, and local companies are responsible for planning and implementing advertising and promotion activities. In the China market, Coca-Cola's promotional activities during the Spring Festival in recent years are refreshing. Fireworks, Spring Festival couplets, clay dolls "Ah Fu" and China Zodiac, which represent China culture, have become the publicity themes of Coca-Cola Company and won the recognition of consumers in China.

In 2003, Coca-Cola launched a new logo. The original "wave ribbon" evolved from a single ribbon pattern to a multi-level and multi-color design; Coca-cola arc bottle is changed to a unique "bubble arc bottle"; The "flying red cover" was replaced by the English font of Coca-Cola Spencer; Coca-Cola's traditional Chinese font has been updated to a more modern Spencer Chinese font. Bao, president of Coca-Cola China Beverage Co., Ltd. said, "We not only changed the trademark, but also changed the new way of communicating with consumers".

The most typical attempt of localization and innovation of Coca-Cola brand image is the Daafu packaging launched during the Spring Festival in 2002. The festive red color and the traditional image of China lucky doll almost make people forget that the brown liquid in this jar is imported from foreigners. In fact, this is also Coca-Cola's silent response to the challenges of local brands such as Coca-Cola.

It is worth mentioning that the rustic packaging and advertisements of Daafu may not be so cute to some marketing experts who take it for granted and are used to cursing melatonin. Just because Coca Cola is in use, they dare not say too much. If the same technology is used in Coca-Cola, it may lead to laughter. In fact, what really makes people afraid to speak is that Coca-Cola respects the opinions of consumers in the process of choosing promotion methods and even the products themselves, not the opinions of bosses or elites. Just like Sergio Ziman's wonderful advertisement when he canceled the new formula and restored the old coke, he said, "We are neither so smart nor so stupid. We want to bring back the old coke because you want it. "

Change packaging, logo and image spokesperson-can these seemingly illusory innovations really stimulate the sales of a product? At the beginning of 2003, Coca-Cola launched a new logo, launched a 2.3-liter ultra-large package of Coca-Cola, and launched Sprite bottle gourd packaging ... Driven by these actions, the national market share actually increased by 2-3 percentage points. The changes in Guangzhou market are particularly typical. After the introduction of the new packaging, Coca-Cola's sales in Guangzhou actually increased by 28% year-on-year. In fact, it is not the first time that Coca-Cola has stimulated consumer demand by adjusting marketing strategies other than advertising volume. One year, Coca-Cola even canceled the annual advertising budget of the Canadian market and replaced the packaging with the saved funds. The reason is that the company learned from the data survey that it is not the arrival rate of advertisements that hinders product promotion, but the mediocre packaging. Of course, these skills can also be used by opponents. The fifth season launched by Jianlibao from last year and the black-packaged fruit-popping steam are very successful examples.

Two heads are better than one.

Since/kloc-0 entered the China market in 1979, Coca-Cola Company has invested more than 10 billion US dollars, and established 22 bottle decoration companies and 28 bottle decoration factories in cooperation with Kerry, Swire and China Grain and Oil Corporation, which basically covered most provinces in China. The advantages of this investment are: firstly, the company's production capacity and sales capacity can match the market demand to the greatest extent; Secondly, a very perfect product distribution system has been established throughout the country, and each bottling plant will focus on the operation of the local market, making the distribution of goods more in-depth and rapid; Third, there are opportunities to conduct targeted market operations according to the different characteristics of the local market, such as different taste combinations or packaging combinations, and even product pricing or marketing activities to better meet the needs of local consumers; Finally, the cost increase caused by long-distance transportation is avoided.

However, there is no difference between Pepsi and Coca-Cola only from the strategic intention of improving and expanding distribution capacity, and Pepsi's investment in China is also huge. Why has Pepsi's market share been far behind? Lan Hailin, a professor at South China University of Technology, made a comparative study on the strategies of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola in China market, and concluded that the leading position of Coca-Cola has a great relationship with the choice of partners:

First, the partners selected by Coca-Cola Company are highly internationalized and have long-term cooperation with them, so they have a more consistent understanding of the long-term strategic objectives and strategies of the China market, thus making all partners willing to make more investments; Second, the Coca-Cola Company does not need to invest heavily; Third, Coca-Cola Company is less restricted by the management system and concept of state-owned enterprises, because its joint venture bottling plant is several partners, rather than one-on-one cooperation like Pepsi. Thus, the strategic choice of Coca-Cola Company in China market made it regain its first-Mover advantage.

Cultivate "cannibal brothers"

Sprite, the second brand of Coca-Cola, has played an extremely important role in the years of struggle between Coca-Cola and its old rival Pepsi. According to the latest statistics of AC Nielsen, the sales volume of Sprite in China market has been equal to that of Pepsi. This lemon-flavored soft drink stuck to its own world 10 years ago, because it was too similar to the similar product 7-up of PepsiCo Group, and its performance was not particularly good. From 65438 to 0993, Coca-Cola began to expand and reposition the connotation of Sprite. Coca-Cola's idea is: Why not let it jump out of the barriers of lemon and lime products and participate in the competition of the whole beverage industry? Therefore, Coca-Cola began to stop talking about transparency and purity, but told consumers: "When you reflect your attitude towards yourself and life, you should think of Sprite." Such an abstract orientation puts Sprite in the background of competing with Coca-Cola and Pepsi for similar spiritual resources to some extent. More vividly, when you go to a restaurant and say you want a bottle of coke, you will hear the waiter ask you, "Coca-Cola doesn't have it, but Pepsi and Sprite do."

As a result of this adjustment, Sprite has actually become the fastest growing soft drink, and its sales have tripled in four years. Some people may question that since Sprite is in a competitive position with Coca-Cola, the boss of the same camp, it will almost inevitably erode Coca-Cola's market share. Yes, Coca-Cola admits this. But the problem is that it erodes the share of Pepsi and 7-up more. Coca-Cola said the move was to cultivate "cannibal brothers".

Besides Sprite, Coca-Cola has also attracted much attention in the development of other non-carbonated beverage products in recent years. On the one hand, market leaders are often the biggest beneficiaries when the total market capacity expands. On the other hand, compared with other soft drinks, the growth of carbonated drinks is relatively slow in recent years. Therefore, it is imperative for Coca-Cola to develop new soft drink products, no matter from the perspective of power or pressure.

Therefore, Coca-Cola Company is developing into a comprehensive beverage company, not just a provider of carbonated drinks. The strategy of Coca-Cola Company is to expand its beverage series on a global scale under the premise of effective profit, so it constantly develops new beverage products. In 2000 alone, Coca-Cola introduced 15 new beverage varieties in 45 Asian countries. In the China market, in addition to the traditional four international brands, Coca-Cola also owns brands including eye-catching fruit-flavored drinks, Tiandi non-carbonated drinks, Bao Ruide sports drinks, Jinmeile, Chevrolet and Lanfeng honey green tea drinks, Sunshine tea drinks and Queer fruit drinks, and the product categories cover soda water.

In the process of promoting new products, Coca-Cola has achieved full "resource sharing", and successfully developed products from all over the world can be introduced to each other and adjusted according to local market demand and consumer habits, so that successful good products in the system can be shared with consumers all over the world. The company calls this practice "internationalization of local brands". For example, the "Tiandi" oolong tea and jasmine tea developed in China were introduced to Singapore, and the "Tiandi" kumquat tea suitable for Singaporean consumers was also developed. "Lanfeng" tea beverage, which was popular all over the country, was first successfully listed in Japan, and then spread to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other domestic markets. The "Queer" juice beverage of Coca-Cola Company was successfully developed in Japan in 1999, and became the third main beverage of Coca-Cola Company in Japan in 20001(after Coca-Cola and Fanta), and was launched in South Korea, Singapore and China in 20001and 2002.

Since 1997, Coca-Cola has been promoting its own brand of non-carbonated beverages in China market, among which Queer introduced from Japanese Coca-Cola Company is the best one. At present, the share of queer in the non-carbonated beverage market has reached 17%, second only to Uni-President Fresh Orange. Last year, China Coca-Cola Company spent 654.38+93 billion yuan to acquire the non-carbonated beverage production base operated by Swire Beverage (Dongguan) Co., Ltd. This move shows Coca-Cola's determination to do a big job in the field of non-carbonated drinks. Zhao said that non-carbonated beverages contributed 65,438+00% of the sales of Coca-Cola (China).

Nanchuangxin Marketing Dundi

Coca-Cola's China Classic

Coca-Cola, the national brand of the United States.