Millions of dollars spent just to change a name? Three repositionings that Lao Xiang Ji didn’t tell you about

Have you ever wondered if the trend of Lao Xiang Ji has reached your city? From Anhui to all over the country, how did the brand of Lao Xiang Ji develop?

Lao Xiang Ji is already a nationally renowned Chinese catering brand. Like all brands, it grew from a regional brand.

At the cognitive level, Lao Xiang Ji is targeting the representatives of Chinese fast food. At the operational level, Lao Xiang Ji has withdrawn its business to Anhui to focus on potential.

The operations at these two levels are different, but they also complement each other. Brand power and channel power help each other, pushing Lao Xiang Ji from a regional brand to a national brand.

In the early days, Lao Xiang Ji was a brand that grew up in Anhui and was scattered across the country. After realizing the importance of building a regional brand, it first closed stores outside Anhui and focused on operations in Anhui.

Only after they had built a base where they could defend and attack did they leave Anhui.

In Anhui, its base market, Lao Xiangji can test new models without fear of making mistakes, because the base market is solid enough and has a high tolerance rate.

If Lao Xiang Ji encounters setbacks in the Wuhan and Shanghai markets, it can retreat to Anhui, recuperate and make a comeback, because the base market is solid enough to provide a steady supply of ammunition.

The Anhui market is to Hometown Chicken what the Hebei market is to Hengshui Laobai Gan, like Guanzhong to Liu Bang, like the Northeast to New China, and like Changsha to Cha Yan Yue Se. It is a strategic base and an advantageous position that guarantees an invincible position.

Every national brand started out as a regional brand, and every national brand also needs a strategic base.

1. From Feixi Chicken Soup to Chinese Fast Food

The original name of Lao Xiang Ji was Feixi Old Hen, and its main business is chicken soup. The chicken soup made from chickens raised for 180 days is tasty and very popular with customers.

So when the name was changed, many people didn’t understand: Customers love our chicken soup, why change it to fast food? Feixi Old Hen is also well-known in Anhui, why give it up?

If we look at it from the perspective of "perception is difficult to change" and "conforming to customer perception", is changing the name a challenge to perception? We often say that we should not challenge customer perception. Is this approach correct?

When Lao Xiang Ji decided to change its name, it already had more than 100 stores. Changing the name means tens of millions of material costs. Is it worth it?

The answer to the question lies in the judgment of the trend.

The biggest opportunity is the real Chinese fast food. Other brands are all learning from KFC and McDonald's. The location, set menu and decoration are very similar, but the food content is different.

Seizing the opportunity of Chinese fast food can create China's KFC, which has a greater prospect than simply making chicken soup. Trends are the greatest cognitive energy.

The name of Feixi Old Hen has regional restrictions and has no cognitive potential outside Anhui. However, Laoxiang Chicken is a name that people all over the country can understand.

The first element of brand positioning is to grasp the trend. Trends are more powerful than customer perception. The name change from Feixi Old Mother Chicken to Lao Xiang Ji is a strategic adjustment from a regional fast food brand to a national brand.

The second element is to analyze the competition and create differences. The operating elements of Lao Xiang Ji are obviously different from those of KFC, Lao Niangjiu, and Zhen Gongfu. McDonald's and KFC are emergency fast food, so we make it into casual fast food, where you can sit down and chat.

McDonald's makes you feel uncomfortable. Why does it make you uncomfortable? It wants you to leave quickly. The music inside is very loud and the seats are very small. They just don't want you to sit for too long.

We are a casual fast food restaurant, so we do the opposite. The lighting shouldn't be so bright, the seats should be more comfortable and the environment should be more relaxed.

At the same time, because I am a casual fast food restaurant, I encourage you to come and eat here often, so you can choose the styles yourself. You can order some dishes by yourself, so that your combination is very rich. If you want to eat more, the average customer spending can be more than 100 yuan. If you want to eat less, the average customer spending can be a few dozen yuan. It is up to you.

Its store opening model has also changed. McDonald's and KFC emergency fast food restaurants must be opened in shopping malls, in places with high traffic.

But we can open stores in communities or other places, so the operating standards corresponding to the two positioning, the standards for opening stores, the standards for assessment, and the standards for research and development are all different.

So at this time, you should first become strong in the local market and have a certain amount of financial resources, and then go abroad. Because once you go abroad, you will be different from others and naturally win the choice of customers. (Xie Weishan)

Only by being different can you win the competition.

Lao Xiang Ji’s public relations strategy also follows this principle: different is better than better. The brilliant public relations strategy has brought Lao Xiang Ji a good communication effect.

During the epidemic, when other catering brands were cutting salaries and closing stores, the chairman of Lao Xiang Ji rejected the employees' request to take the initiative to cut salaries. When other catering brands held press conferences in a high-end style, Lao Xiang Ji held a press conference in the countryside with a budget of 200 yuan.

Lao Xiangji’s first repositioning was based on its insight into larger trend opportunities and its repositioning from a regional brand to a national brand.

2. From the largest fast food restaurant in Anhui to the leading fast food restaurant in China

The largest fast food brand in Anhui. To the people of the whole country, it is not a big deal that Anhui is the largest, because the Anhui region has little potential in the whole country.

However, for Lao Xiang Ji, especially in the strategic origin period, the most important thing is the cognitive value in Anhui Province. In the early stage, it is necessary to focus on Anhui and occupy the cognition of customers in Anhui Province, so the largest Anhui is the most valuable.

Another value of Anhui's largest fast food restaurant is to build a base for Lao Xiang Ji, improve management, upgrade the supply chain, and test the market within the province, then move out of Anhui after cultivating its internal strength.

The first is to occupy a market that can be defended. The tea chain brand Cha Yan Yue Se defended the Changsha market, Hengshui Lao Bai Gan defended the Hebei market, and Xiangcunji defended the southwest market. Their purpose is to establish a base.

Others can't get in, but you can get in.

In order to establish a base, Lao Xiang Ji closed its stores in Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing, focusing its resources on the Anhui market. It did not enter Wuhan and Nanjing until it had opened about 400 directly-operated stores in Anhui.

Strategy requires focus, and focus means giving up, which is difficult to do. Lao Xiang Ji, which implemented the strategy, also reaped rich rewards.

Relying on the huge potential accumulated in Anhui, Lao Xiang Ji opened more than 60 directly-operated stores in Ninghan within one year in 2016.

In 2019, Lao Xiang Ji entered the Shanghai market and currently has nearly 800 directly-operated stores across the country.

As it expands nationwide, Lao Xiang Ji has repositioned itself as the "national leading brand of Chinese fast food" and is still growing at a rate of 40% per year. (Lao Xiang Ji)

If you don't see the significance of focusing, you won't understand why the stores in Shanghai and Nanjing were closed one moment and then reopened the next. After leaving Anhui again, Hometown Chicken already has mental potential and regional potential.

The contraction from the whole country to Anhui is to focus resources to fight a flanking battle. The move from Anhui to the whole country again is to shift from a flanking battle to an offensive.

After leaving Anhui, Lao Xiang Ji has repositioned itself as China's leading fast food brand. With the brand effect brought by the successful public relations in the early stage, Lao Xiang Ji has become well-known to consumers in many regions, which is an important resource for turning the flanking war into an offensive war.

The second repositioning of Hometown Chicken was from the No. 1 fast food brand in Anhui to the leading Chinese fast food brand in China. Competitors were adjusted from fast food brands in Anhui to domestic fast food brands.

3. From the first Chinese fast food to the first Chinese fast food

Lao Xiang Ji’s ultimate goal: to become the number one fast food brand in China.

It is not just the No. 1 Chinese fast food brand, because Chinese fast food has not yet regarded KFC as a competitor, but has divided a category for itself to become the leader. The goal of becoming the No. 1 Chinese fast food brand must be to surpass KFC.

Homemade Chicken's offensive tactics: 180-day-old native chickens vs. 45-day-old farmed chickens. KFC's chickens are raised for 45 days, which is definitely not as good as the 3-month-old native chickens.

Zhen Gongfu has shown us how to compete with KFC: steamed food is more nutritious than fried food. If it weren't for the internal management problems of Zhen Gongfu, I believe it would have already taken over half of the market.

Lao Xiang Ji can pick up the effective tactics of Zhen Gongfu, combine it with the local chicken ingredients that have a 180-day growth period, and continue to target KFC's inherent weaknesses to launch an attack.

Brands in similar categories to Lao Xiang Ji include Tai Er Pickled Fish and Black Chicken Restaurant. Their effective tactics and strategic routes are inspirations for all catering brands.

We believe that Lao Xiang Ji’s strategy should be an inspiration to Xibei. After changing its name, Lao Xiang Ji did not give up Feixi Old Hen Chicken Soup, but positioned this product as the representative product of Lao Xiang Ji.

The positioning of oat noodles in Xibei should also be a representative product, like big bone sticks, roujiamo, and yogurt, which is a super single product used to increase customer unit price and brand awareness, rather than upgrading to the overall positioning of the brand.

The first repositioning of Lao Xiang Ji was from Feixi Old Mother Chicken Soup to Lao Xiang Ji. It seemed to be just a change of name - the name is the shortest and most important strategy, and naming is formulating strategy - but in fact it was a strategic adjustment, repositioning from a local fast food brand to a national Chinese fast food brand.

The second repositioning of Lao Xiang Ji was from the largest fast food restaurant in Anhui to the leading Chinese fast food brand. Before that, it concentrated its resources in Anhui, established a solid base, and then gradually expanded across the country.

First, he occupied an advantageous position (Chinese fast food), then he focused resources on development in Anhui, while mobilizing cognitive resources to spread awareness, and finally he grasped the rhythm and began the expansion steps when the potential energy spread across the country.

The third repositioning of Lao Xiang Ji has not yet occurred, which is a logical deduction we made based on the first two repositionings.

The offensive of Hometown Chicken was to become the No. 1 Chinese fast food brand first, and then the No. 1 Chinese fast food brand. In terms of the number of stores (KFC has 6,000 stores) and brand potential (180-day-old free-range chicken is better than 45-day-old fast-food chicken), Hometown Chicken replaced KFC and became the No. 1 fast food brand.

Author: Zhang Zhiyu WeChat public account: Zhang Zhiyu