I spent three cents in the Coconut Tree live broadcast room

As short video platforms become new marketing channels, live streaming performance has increasingly become one of the criteria for measuring brand success. "Beautiful women and strong men", "0 sugar and 0 fat", Coco Tree has broken through the siege with its unique marketing tactics and captured the minds of young people. Let's take a look at the marketing strategy of Coco Tree Group.

Just when you thought there was nothing new about 618, the "marketing ghost" Coconut Tree Group came riding on a cloud.

On the first day of June, Coconut Tree started live streaming during the 618 festival. However, it does not sell drinks. The only item in the live streaming room is a "masculine dance ticket". There is only one ticket available, and the highest bidder can dance with the Coconut Tree macho man in the live streaming room for 30 seconds.

I don't know whether the rationality was trapped by the macho bodybuilding pants or the slender waist of the cyclist awakened the wildness, but the ticket was actually auctioned off - the 2-hour live broadcast attracted nearly 1 million viewers. The starting price of the "disco ticket" was 50 yuan, and there were more than 300 bids, and it was finally sold for 80,930 yuan (2,698 yuan per second).

Netizens were marveling at Coconut Tree's imagination one second, and the next they were mourning their own imaginations being stifled by poverty. While shouting that they didn't understand, they asked on social media: When will this dance be broadcast? I want to watch it.

The platform’s first live broadcast was not about selling goods but about “making things happen”. The marketing intention of Coco Tree’s live broadcast was clear.

It focuses more on marketing than selling products, and we can get a glimpse of this from its sales performance.

Since last year's National Day, Coconut Tree's "beautiful women and strong men" live broadcast has been going on for more than half a year. However, Coconut Tree's live broadcast is only lively but not hot.

Data shows that the Douyin account of "Coconut Group Hainan Coconut Juice Beverage Co., Ltd.", which focuses on live broadcasts of macho men, has been watched by more than 6 million people in the past month, but the sales of goods only amounted to 100,000 to 250,000 yuan; the Coconut Group, which focuses on "beauty live broadcasts", has had more than 5 million people watching its live broadcasts in the past month, with sales of goods ranging from 50,000 to 75,000 yuan.

For Coco Tree, advertising through live broadcasts may be more important than selling products in live broadcasts. In the current beverage market, the market share of Coco Tree Group is being squeezed step by step. According to Beijing Business Daily, the market share of Coco Tree coconut juice once reached 75% in 1999, but it has dropped to about 26.3% in 2019, and is still being further divided.

In contrast, old brands are gaining new popularity. The live broadcasts of strong men and beautiful women continue to create topics. Their muscular bodies and sunny looks attract young people to come and watch because they are "lusty" and leave with the feeling that "they really love their jobs."

With the double massage of eyes and spirit, Coco Tree wants to recapture the minds of young people.

As the trend of tea drinks featuring the concept of "0 sugar and 0 fat" becomes popular, coconut juice is increasingly difficult to please young people. Coco Tree needs to reshape its brand awareness among young people, and short video live streaming is undoubtedly the most convenient channel to reach young people at present. According to iMedia Research, among the age composition of Chinese short video/live streaming users, nearly 80% of consumers are between 22 and 40 years old.

In order to further narrow the distance with young people, Coconut Tree also launched a co-branded coffee with Luckin Coffee. Currently, the fan portrait of Coconut Tree Group shows that more than 70% of users are between 18 and 40 years old.

Advertising marketing is considered one of the three magic weapons of the Coconut Tree Group. As marketing channels shifted from television broadcasting to short video platforms, Coconut Tree and its founder Wang Guangxing also turned their attention to the live broadcast room.

01

Coco Tree’s “beautiful women and strong men” style live streaming of goods has made topics such as #Do you think Coco Tree’s live streaming is borderline? ##Coco Tree does not sell goods, it’s purely borderline# frequently appear on hot searches, thus attracting more people to rush into Coco Tree’s live streaming room.

Amid the controversy over "skirting the line", some netizens supported Coco Tree: "She has pure eyes and openly shows off her muscular body, how can that be considered skirting the line?" Others expressed gratitude: "First, they didn't cheat me of my money, and second, they didn't cheat me of my feelings. This is not skirting the line, it's giving warmth from the grassroots."

Some people even found out that the one-piece fitness pants of the Coconut Tree macho men were the same ones worn by Wang Guangxing, the founder of the Coconut Tree Group, several years ago. This seemed to prove that the focus of Coconut Tree was on "physical fitness" rather than vulgarity. (Coconut Tree took advantage of the victory and announced on Taobao that it would sell "CEO vests").

According to FeiGua data, the Douyin account of "Coconut Group Hainan Coconut Juice Beverage Co., Ltd.", which started the "macho live broadcast" on Women's Day on March 8 this year, has broadcast 44 shows in the past three months, and a total of 24.32 million people have flocked to the live broadcast room.

However, while tens of millions of people have increased the popularity of the live broadcast room, they have not brought about hot sales of products. Data shows that the sales of Hainan Coconut Juice Beverage Co., Ltd. of Coconut Tree Group in the past three months ranged from 750,000 yuan to 1 million yuan, and the sales volume of the live broadcast room ranged from 10,000 to 25,000. Take a live broadcast on March 17 as an example. In a one-hour live broadcast, 2 million people rushed into the live broadcast room, but the sales volume was only 50,000 to 75,000 yuan, with an average consumption of only 0.03 yuan per person.

It really fits the popular saying in the live broadcast industry: "Watch when it's on, and leave when it's off. You don't have to pay a penny. The main purpose is just to keep you company."

Another official Douyin account, "Yeshu Group", has even bleaker live streaming data. Data from the past three months show that the Yeshu Group account has broadcast 27 live broadcasts, with a total of 12.53 million people flocking to the live broadcast room, and the live broadcast room has accumulated sales of 100,000 to 250,000 yuan. For example, a live broadcast on June 1st had 1.65 million viewers for one hour, with the highest number of online viewers reaching 90,000, but sales were only 25,000 to 50,000 yuan.

Judging from the sales data alone, the sales of less than 10,000 yuan per live broadcast by the Coconut Tree Group is undoubtedly a failure compared with those brand live broadcast rooms that also have millions of onlookers and can easily generate millions or even tens of millions of viewers per live broadcast.

However, behind the dismal sales data, Coconut Tree Group may not have put all its efforts into live streaming , for example, the live streamers are not professional and relatively little time is invested. The Douyin account of Coconut Tree Group only did 27 live broadcasts in three months, and another account "Coconut Tree Group Hainan Coconut Juice Beverage Co., Ltd." did 44 live broadcasts in three months, with an average of one hour per live broadcast, which did not form a regular live broadcast.

Compared with selling goods, the bigger purpose of Coconut Tree Group’s entry into the live broadcast room may be for brand marketing. This is a campaign to “reach deep into the young people.”

The live broadcast room has become a new low-cost advertising channel for the Coco Tree Group. Rather than calling it a Coco Tree live broadcast room, it is more like a "Coco Tree Channel", which broadcasts one hour of Coco Tree advertisements every day with low cost and good results.

After the live broadcast of handsome men and beautiful women went viral, Coco Tree also held offline fan meetings and moved the live broadcast room into shopping malls. In addition to the live broadcast, the anchors would run into the crowd to give warm hugs.

What’s even more interesting is that the fact that the focus is not on bringing goods has become fresh to young people and has become a hot topic on the Internet, which is also the origin of the hot search term “pure wiping without bringing goods”. The image of a person who has not changed his “original intention” for many years and has a rebellious character has been established.

Although few people flocked to the live broadcast room to buy things, many people talked about it, which really brought a steady stream of topics and traffic to Coconut Tree. According to the statistical analysis of "WeChat Business Public Opinion Monitoring", from March 6 to June 5, 2023, the amount of online information about "Coconut Tree Live" exceeded 210,000. The Weibo topic #Do you think Coconut Tree Live is considered a borderline? # has attracted 310 million views in less than a week.

The "earthy" style of the coconut tree is increasingly becoming a special aesthetic symbol. On e-commerce platforms, you can even find coconut-style T-shirts and pants. Whether it's a date, an interview, or visiting relatives and friends, there is no occasion that is suitable for it.

One had no interest in selling goods, and the other had no interest in placing orders, so a strange tacit understanding formed between Coco Tree and its consumers.

The Coconut Tree's marketing tactics, which use the name of selling goods, have been played out many times in the real estate circle. The reason why Wang Jianlin, Xu Jiayin and other real estate tycoons are willing to spend a lot of money to buy a team that is "sure to lose money" is marketing. In 2010, Xu Jiayin bought out the Guangzhou Football Club for 100 million yuan. By sponsoring football, Xu Jiayin quickly increased his own and Evergrande's popularity. Similarly, Wang Jianlin also owned the "Dalian Wanda Football Club" through sponsoring a team, and jumped from a local real estate developer to a national topic figure.

More importantly, at a time when the new tea-drink trend is in vogue, the Coconut Tree Group needs to reawaken brand awareness among younger groups through advertising in live broadcast rooms.

02

Tasteless marketing, controversial advertising, and skirting the line are the usual routines of the Coconut Tree Group. Who can forget the shock of seeing the Coconut Tree "beauty" advertisements on billboards, television, and even on the big screen of the cinema?

The three core elements of this earthy taste are: visual design, handsome men and beautiful women, and money. The most typical example is the "earthy recruitment advertisement" of the Coconut Tree Group, which gathered all three elements before launching the controversial live streaming sales model and marketing the "beauty" live streaming style.

In recent years, the Coconut Tree Group has frequently released recruitment advertisements of this type: "Coconut Tree Group is training general managers and deputy general managers. The school is recruiting students again... After admission, you will have a car, a house, a high salary, and you will definitely be pursued by beautiful women and handsome men", which has attracted heated discussions from the outside world. In 2021, the Coconut Tree Group even marked the content of "undergraduate annual salary of 168,000 yuan, master's annual salary of 255,000 yuan, and doctoral annual salary of 336,000 yuan" in the recruitment advertisement. In the advertisement in March this year, the words "beautiful women are pursuing" were gone, but the photos of beautiful women were indispensable, with bright colors occupying a large space and becoming the visual center.

These plans, which have been fermented by public opinion, have brought traffic to the Coconut Tree Group and have been reflected in sales. In March of this year, the Coconut Tree Group released an overview stating that sales in 2022 will increase by 5% on the basis of double-digit growth in the same period of 2021, and sales in 2021 increased by 16.82% year-on -year.

Behind all the earthy marketing, there is Wang Guangxing, the helmsman of the Coconut Tree Group.

Wang Guangxing made his first fortune by using his rustic marketing style. In 1983, due to poor management, the Haikou Beverage Factory had a backlog of more than 800 tons of wine in its warehouse. Wang Guangxing packaged the wine in festive red, which eventually earned the beverage factory more than 1 million yuan. Over the years, with the help of rustic marketing, the Coconut Tree Group has set off a wave of topics every once in a while, and with the help of marketing, it has gradually become the number one coconut milk brand with annual revenue of tens of billions of yuan.

Even though it has faced criticism and doubt from the outside world, the Coconut Tree Group has remained extremely stubborn and has never considered changing its earthy marketing style.

In 2016, the Coco Tree Group launched the "breast model bottle" packaging, which was questioned for objectifying women and engaging in soft pornography, causing considerable controversy; in 2017, the Coco Tree Group again attracted outside doubts for launching the slogan "Promote the development of young girls"; in 2019, the Coco Tree Group's slogan "I have been drinking it since I was a child" was named by the State Administration of Radio and Television as "some versions of Coco Tree brand coconut juice advertisements unilaterally pursue sensory stimulation, promote vulgar content, violate social trends, and have deviations in value orientation." That year, it was also listed as a negative typical case by the National "Office for Combating Pornography and Illegal Publications" because of the "breast enhancement artifact" copywriting.

However, external doubts did not prevent Coco Tree from writing the method of "profiting from public opinion" into the company's good news, and even called the advertisement that caused the controversy the "correct decision", which is one of Coco Tree's three magic weapons.

03

The fact that Coco Tree uses live streaming as another brand advertising showcase also reflects the changes in marketing channels in recent years.

In 1988, the Coconut Tree Group was still a nobody and had little reputation in the national market. But at that time, Wang Guangxing knew how to use the media to promote its reputation by launching advertisements on major TV stations. By 1994, Coconut Tree brand coconut juice ranked first in sales among national beverage companies. It was reported that orders at that time were scheduled for three years later.

However, with the transformation of marketing channels, short video platforms are replacing major TV stations and becoming a new marketing hub for a number of brands. The main consumer groups are watching short videos, so naturally, advertisements have to be stuffed right under their noses.

The 2023 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report shows that the number of online audiovisual users in my country has reached 1.04 billion, surpassing instant messaging (1.038 billion) to become the largest Internet application. Among them, the market size of short videos accounts for 40.3%, and the market size of online live broadcast accounts for 17.2%. Short videos and live broadcasts have become emerging models in sales channels and brand promotion positions.

Douyin, the largest short video platform with over 700 million daily active users, has become the first stop for more and more brands to choose live streaming marketing. The "2021 Douyin Private Domain Operation White Paper" released by ByteDance shows that as of July 2021, the total number of Douyin corporate accounts has reached 8 million.

A number of tea brands have performed particularly well in the new round of traffic competition. Not only are new teas such as "Cha Baidao" and "Nayuki's Tea" live broadcasting on Douyin, but even Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha who once threatened not to engage in e-commerce, appeared in the Douyin live broadcast room in 2020 and began to transform and embrace short video live broadcasting.

In that live broadcast debut, Zong Qinghou said, "Other people do live broadcasts to bring goods, we deliver goods," and focused on getting along with young people. Not only did he try the free products, give a heart shape, and guess the meaning of online slang at the request of netizens, but he also took off his cloth shoes on the spot to show them to netizens out of curiosity: "Look, these are my cloth shoes, I bought them for more than 30 yuan a pair, they are very comfortable to wear."

More and more brands are beginning to use live streaming as a platform for brand image promotion. Apple, the world's largest listed company by market value, is no exception. In its recent live streaming debut, Apple did not promote its products, but used the live streaming room as a product function demonstration room. Despite this, 1.28 million people still flocked to Apple's live streaming room during the one-hour live streaming.

As short video platforms become new marketing channels, live streaming performance is increasingly becoming one of the criteria for measuring a brand’s success.

While many brands from "childhood memories" are gradually being forgotten, and some even exclaim "it's still alive" when they see it, Coconut Tree is still active in the hot search terms. The "borderline" controversy and popularity without sales may just be the price it is willing to pay.

Author: Xue Yaping and Bi Andi; Editor: Zhao Jinjie

Source: WeChat public account "Hefan Finance (ID: daxiongfan)"