Messi sells wine to "send blessings", will fans respond?

What kind of sparks will emerge from the cooperation between an unknown sauce wine brand and the famous football star Messi? Let's read the following to find the answer.

"Messi is the winner, but what about Chishui River wine?" The title image comes from the movie "Messi"

"I placed an order yesterday and received blessings from Messi today!" A netizen commented on the e-commerce platform on January 12.

Unlike singer Cai Guoqing, the football king Messi's "blessings" were not aimed at nostalgia, but the companies behind him teamed up with Messi to empty the wallets of consumers, including fans.

The relevant background is that on January 11, Messi’s real-name authenticated Weibo account announced that the Chishui River wine signed and blessed by Messi has gone on sale, with a global limit of 10,000 pieces (success version).

Image source: MessiLeoMessi10 Weibo

According to information from Chishuihe JD flagship store, the Messi autographed blessing version is a 53% Maotai-flavor liquor with a capacity of 500ml. The price of a box (6 bottles) is 6,600 yuan, and the price of a single bottle is 1,499 yuan. The first five consumers who place an order of 10 boxes or more and are ranked by payment time can get Messi's autographed jersey. The media said, "The quota is currently full."

There is Messi's autographed blessing, a personally signed jersey, and the upcoming Spring Festival. With multiple factors driving this, will more fans rush forward and place orders for love?

1. Messi is involved, but not accurate enough

Before spending money to hire Messi as its spokesperson, Chishui River Wine had little fame in the industry or society.

According to media reports, the company that owns Chishuihe Liquor is Guizhou Zhongchi Liquor Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongchi Liquor"). The official website shows that Chishuihe is a high-end sauce-flavored liquor brand that Zhongchi Liquor focuses on building. The brand was registered in 1979 and is one of the early registered liquor brands in China. Zhongchi Liquor was established in September 2021 with a registered capital of 300 million yuan. The chairman is Gao Jinhua, who is also the chairman and general manager of Stanley, the "fertilizer king".

The transformation of the "Fertilizer King" into selling wine is itself a hot topic, but what is interesting is that Stanley once publicly "clarified" to the media that Zhongchi Wine Industry is not a Stanley subsidiary, and its invitation of Messi to be a spokesperson has nothing to do with Stanley, and "is the personal behavior of Chairman Gao Jinhua."

Whether inviting Messi to be the spokesperson has anything to do with Stanley is actually not that important. The key point is that as the head of Zhongchi Liquor Industry, Gao Jinhua is very concerned about Messi.

In August 2023, at the "Messi & Chishui River Brand Conference", Gao Jinhua appeared in Messi's national team No. 10 jersey. Not only him, but also the executives who spoke on stage wore the same jersey.

More than a month later, Chishui River Wine held an endorsement signing ceremony in Miami, the United States, and officially signed with Messi. At the signing ceremony, Gao Jinhua held Messi's national team jersey and Messi held Chishui River Wine. After the photo was released, it triggered another wave of heated discussions.

Image source: Chishuihe Wine official Weibo

It was from that time that, driven by the super IP of Messi, Chishui River Liquor continued to increase its popularity, at least letting a large number of netizens know that there is such a sauce-flavored liquor brand.

Some people are not optimistic about this endorsement, while others think it is creative marketing. In this regard, Cai Xuefei, an analyst in the liquor industry, said that as a football superstar, Messi is already a hot topic and popular, and the overlap between Messi's fan base and the audience of liquor companies is very high. Reaching the fan base through Messi can improve the exposure and reputation of the company to a certain extent.

Needless to say, Messi can indeed increase the exposure and reputation of Chishui River Liquor, but the ultimate goal of hiring a spokesperson is to boost sales - and this is where the problem lies. Selling sauce-flavored liquor by attracting Messi fans is not strategically accurate.

According to the wine industry self-media "Jiu Xun" citing the "2022 China Football Fan Marketing Value Report", the number of fans in China is about 289 million, of which 88.2% are male. The age distribution of fans is mostly between 25 and 34 years old, accounting for 41.5%. According to industry data, white wine consumers show the characteristics of "consumers aged 31 to 40 are the main purchasing force", accounting for nearly 50%.

Among them, in the field of sauce-flavored liquor focused by Chishuihe Liquor, a report released by iMedia Consulting shows that the consumer profile of sauce-flavored liquor is concentrated on male business people and the middle class over 35 years old.

"Jiu Xun" bluntly said: "These consumption characteristics are different from the user portrait of football fans. Therefore, the role of Messi's endorsement of Chishui River sauce wine in driving its consumption is also controversial."

In short, using Messi to attract fans and more consumers to place orders seems to be a good idea, but the reality is quite cruel.

2. The wine industry is in a cold winter, and Messi alone is not enough

The "cruel reality" faced by Chishui River Liquor is not only that its strategy is not precise enough, but also that the overall environment of the wine industry's cold winter is a problem that cannot be avoided.

Regarding the overall environment of the wine industry, Song Shuyu, chairman of the China Alcoholic Drinks Association, once analyzed that since 2023, the circulation end has been under great pressure in terms of inventory backlogs, declining consumption, and weakening expectations, which are mainly manifested in several aspects: First, inventory is high and sales are slow; second, consumption is downward, and differentiation and downgrading have occurred; third, small and medium-sized wine merchants are in deep survival crisis, and leading companies have increased revenue but not profits.

In such a "macro-environment", high-end liquor has been deeply impacted.

According to analysts from Zhengjingshe, the prices of high-end liquors fell across the board in December 2023. Specifically, except for Feitian Moutai, which was basically the same as the same period last year, the prices of high-end liquors such as Moutai 1935, Puwu, Guojiao 1573, Mengzhilan M9, and Jiugui Neican all fell, ranging from 30 to 170 yuan per bottle.

Among them, Moutai 1935 had the largest drop, from around 1,150 yuan/bottle in December 2022 to around 980 yuan/bottle in December 2023. Moutai M9 "followed closely", falling from around 1,130 yuan/bottle to around 980 yuan/bottle.

Turning our attention back to Chishui River wine, the price has increased instead of decreased. In August last year, the official retail guide price of the mysterious series of Chishui River wine was 1,299 yuan, while the Messi signature blessing edition, also a mysterious series, has increased its price by 200 yuan per bottle in the Chishui River JD self-operated flagship store.

Image source: Chishuihe JD.com flagship store

Of course, in order to increase its appeal, when promoting its own products, Chishui River Liquor not only emphasized Messi's signature "blessing", but also emphasized that it was produced in the core production area of ​​China's sauce-flavored liquor, "each bottle has its own exclusive code" and has a "limited edition certificate".

However, the media pointed out that it is "catching up with the 'three high-end musketeers' - Moutai, Wuliangye and Guojiao 1573". The price of Chishui River wine has increased instead of decreased. In the current "environment" of the wine industry, how many consumers can it attract to place orders is a "big question mark".

Judging from the situation on the first day of sales on the 11th, it seems that there is some popularity. According to media reports, on that day, Chishuihe JD.com's self-operated flagship store sold at least 50 boxes of Messi-signed Chishuihe wine, "at a price of 6,600 yuan per box, sales revenue exceeded 330,000 yuan."

Then, the market enthusiasm did not surge. One piece of information that can be used to prove this is that at 5 pm on January 14, New Retail Business Review entered the live broadcast room of the flagship store. The female anchor was wearing Messi's national team jersey and was promoting the Chishui River wine signed with a blessing, but the number of viewers was only 119.

Is it because Messi is no longer popular that Chishuihe Wine cannot be promoted? Obviously not. Not to mention that Messi set off a football craze in China last June, in February this year, Miami International, where Messi plays, will play a friendly match with the Hong Kong team. Even though Messi is not guaranteed to play, the tickets are almost sold out.

Messi is still the popular football king, but Chishui River Wine has not won the expected market popularity. This shows that in the cold winter "environment" of the wine industry, it is far from enough to only play the "trump card" of Messi.

In fact, Chishuihe Liquor, which has a shallow foundation, needs to do more. For example, Xiao Zhuqing, a liquor industry analyst, told the media that Chishuihe Liquor has no national sales network, let alone a global sales network.

As for online channels, except for JD.com, other channels have not made much efforts. Tmall's "Chishuihe Liquor Flagship Store" shows that as of 5 pm on January 15, only one bottle of the mysterious series was sold.

Image source: Tmall Chishuihe Liquor Flagship Store

3. Messi is the winner, but what about Chishui River Wine?

Gao Jinhua paid Messi a lot of money to be the spokesperson, and Messi is undoubtedly the winner. According to 21st Century Business Herald, Yangtze Business Daily, Sohu Finance and other media, insiders revealed that Messi authorized the endorsement rights to Chishuihe Wine to use his image, and the endorsement fee is about 20 million yuan per year.

From the perspective of Chishui River Liquor, at present, it has only increased its popularity and cannot be called a winner.

In terms of revenue, according to the "Announcement on the Company's Forecast of Routine Related Transactions in 2023" disclosed by Stanley, from January to March 2023, Zhongchi Liquor Industry had a revenue of 2.7849 million yuan and a net profit loss of 1.2054 million yuan. It is small in scale and has not yet achieved profitability.

Today, Chishui River Wine continues to enhance its brand awareness by leveraging Messi’s influence, while also continuously expanding its production capacity.

According to the official website of Zhongchi Liquor, in February 2022, the "10,000-ton Maotai-flavor liquor technical transformation and capacity expansion project" jointly built by the Xishui County Government of Zunyi City, Guizhou Province and the company was officially signed and landed. The project plans to invest 5 billion yuan, cover an area of ​​more than 600 acres, and produce 12,000 tons of traditional Kunsha Maotai-flavor liquor annually. After the project is completed, Zhongchi Liquor will become a 10,000-ton-level Maotai-flavor liquor production enterprise.

Apart from Messi and Chishui River Wine, Stanley is an easily overlooked but crucial player.

Regarding Chishuihe Liquor, despite the above-mentioned "clarification" that "it was the personal behavior of Chairman Gao Jinhua", the company also publicly stated: "Although it is not a listed company's business, making liquor can meet the company's own liquor needs such as banquets and employee benefits on the one hand, and on the other hand, it can integrate agricultural and real estate resources to provide a new growth pole."

Stanley purchases Chishui River wine for internal drinking. This is "something on the water", and more room for imagination may come from the capital market.

Last August, when the news that Messi would endorse Chishui River Wine was officially announced, Stanley’s stock price jumped 3.17%; this time, Messi’s signed and blessed Chishui River Wine was officially released, and Stanley’s stock price also rose accordingly.

Analysts believe that when OTC capital crosses over to make wine, it is often just arbitrage in the name of making wine, "actually this is a routine of capital speculation." Although Stanley has already "clarified" the relationship between the two, Gao Jinhua's hiring of Messi for a large sum of money may not be as simple as "selling wine."

As the media asked: "Is Chishuihe Wine pragmatic or idealistic? What the outside world knows about it is that it relies on Messi's support, but how is its internal strength cultivation?"

These questions are obvious, but the answers are blowing in the wind - only by getting close to the core consumer group of sauce-flavored liquor and bringing more sense of value and gain can Chishui River Liquor find answers that satisfy itself.

Author: Xiangma, Editor: Ge Weiwei

Source: WeChat official account: New Retail Business Review (ID: xinlingshou1001)