Marketing strategies of beverage brands

What do you think of when you mention Nongfu Spring? Is it "Nongfu Spring, a little sweet" or "We don't produce water, we are just nature's porters"? This article will reveal the marketing strategy of Nongfu Spring and explore why it can leave a deep impression in the hearts of customers. Welcome to read if you are interested in brand marketing in the beverage industry.

After the success of launching sparkling water, Yuanqi Forest vigorously promoted the electrolyte water brand "Alien" during the COVID-19 outbreak, and achieved sales of more than 1 billion in 2022. In the past few years, Yuanqi Forest can be said to be the fast-moving consumer goods company that has invested the most in branding.

The huge investment in the brand has made Yuanqi Forest gain very high popularity and sales both in cities and in rural areas. In the latest season of "Country Love 15", there are many Yuanqi Forest advertisements.

From sponsoring the New Year's Eve party to product placement in rural dramas, this series of brand operations reminds me of another water giant, Nongfu Spring. Like today's Yuanqi Forest, Nongfu Spring was built on branding and public relations.

Of course, they are all based on the fact that their products are good.

The most common time I heard Zhong Shanshan's name was when I held strategic and operational discussions with some of the companies I served. People would mention some of Zhong Shanshan's marketing strategies and the marketing motivations behind them. As far as I can remember, Zhang Yuxiang, chairman of Antarctic E-Commerce, and Yuan Qinshan, chairman of Dayun Group, both mentioned Zhong Shanshan in the discussion meeting and analyzed some of his strategies. Although Nongfu Spring's stock has been falling recently, it still has nearly 500 billion Hong Kong dollars, and Zhong Shanshan is still the richest man in the fast-moving consumer goods sector.

How much money Zhong Shanshan has has little to do with most of us who run businesses, and even that number has little to do with Zhong Shanshan himself. But how Nongfu Spring, with a market value of over 400 billion yuan, does marketing is indeed worth our time to conduct an in-depth perspective and interpretation, to see if we can use the stones from other mountains to polish its jade.

Let's go back 21 years to April 24, 2000. Nongfu Spring, which ranked third in the national drinking water industry at the time, dealt a heavy blow to the entire industry by suddenly announcing that it would no longer produce purified water because it was not good for health, and would switch all production lines to natural water, which was twice as expensive. Zhong Shanshan, who came from the media and was good at media operations, claimed that natural water was better than purified water. This heavy blow set off a huge wave in the national water market.

Nongfu Spring began to prepare for listing in May 1997, and selected Shanghai as the first pilot market in the country. Chairman Zhong Shanshan personally went to Shanghai to investigate the market. He knocked on the door of a resident's house near Jing'an Temple and invited the whole family to taste Nongfu Spring. The child in the family took a sip and blurted out: "It's a bit sweet!" Then he came up with the idea of ​​"Nongfu Spring is a bit sweet". This sweetness made Nongfu Spring sweet all over China. In just over a year after its official listing, it ranked among the top three in the industry.

China's beverage market is one of the most competitive industries with a high degree of saturation, so competition is naturally fierce. However, the dialectical philosophy of China's predecessors tells entrepreneurs with business talent that the most dangerous places are often the safest. Where it seems that there are no opportunities, the opportunities with the greatest potential may exist. Where competition is most intense, that may be the place where you can create the most blank markets.

At that time, Nongfu Spring stopped producing purified water and only produced natural water. Rather than saying that this was a challenge to all purified water competitors, it was better to say that Zhong Shanshan found a new huge blank market, and then made subversive changes to the company's brand positioning and product positioning, and continued to move forward bravely on the road of product differentiation and brand differentiation. Leading consumers to return to nature. At that time, when the country did not issue a "natural water standard", Nongfu Spring's brand positioning of natural water had already won the recognition of consumers.

From the perspective of consumers, who doesn’t want to drink water that is not good for their health? In this battle between natural water and purified water, Nongfu Spring won the overall victory.

Zhong Shanshan made good use of the business innovation approach of creating new categories, leading the industry and becoming the hated one by the entire industry, but they couldn't do anything about it. No matter how the industry attacked Nongfu Spring, consumers' minds were occupied and they continued to recognize the Nongfu Spring brand. Zhong Shanshan, who came from the media, became the most marketing-minded master in the business world through this battle.

If you apply these three questions to every marketing operation of Zhong Shanshan: Do customers recognize it? Do employees use it? Do competitors hate it? You will find that it is a perfect match.

If the series of marketing strategies before 2010 could only be regarded as remaining at the level of tactical creativity and communication creativity, allowing Nongfu Spring to achieve rapid development, then Nongfu Spring's marketing before 2010 began to become more systematic and methodical. Nongfu Spring began to carry out value-based marketing, making users feel that Nongfu Spring is a company driven by mission and values.

1. Nongfu Spring after upgrading: putting the business mission into the hearts of users

After 2010, Nongfu Spring changed from the advertising communication of "Nongfu Spring is a little sweet" as a reason to buy to the slogan of its business mission that impressed the public : "We don't produce water, we are just nature's porters" . This sentence has also become known to the whole country. At the same time, Red Bull, which also wanted to upgrade, was not so lucky. In the past, Red Bull also had a well-known slogan: "When you are sleepy and tired, drink Red Bull", which was changed to "Your energy is beyond your imagination". This sentence made the memory of the Red Bull brand in the minds of consumers disappear faster than expected.

Through another strategic upgrade, Nongfu Spring has successfully become the industry leader in market share.

In order to maintain its position, Nongfu Spring began to operate in a more scientific and refined manner, integrating marketing concepts, packaging design, advertising, product extension and other aspects, making Nongfu Spring a sustained leader in the industry.

2. Core marketing concept: Grasp the essence of the industry "natural and healthy" and let users see it

In Nongfu Spring's product marketing, the marketing concept of "natural and healthy" is centered around it, because this is the essence of the industry. Just like sports brands, the essence of the industry is the spirit of sports; for underwear brands, the essence of the industry is to connect with the charm of the times. Only by coding marketing around the essence of the industry can consumers quickly receive it. In addition to grasping the essence of the industry, Nongfu Spring has also done something different from those brands that only shout out the essence and slogans. Nongfu Spring shows "natural and healthy" to consumers, giving people the feeling that it does not have any trade secrets of its own. Nongfu Spring can satisfy all the things consumers want to know.

In terms of the display of the water source, the Nongfu Spring Water Source Exploration Activity can be said to be a major innovation of the brand. A "museum" was built at the water source to show users a different Nongfu Spring. In order to allow more users to have a deeper understanding of the brand, Nongfu Spring brought the scenery of the water source to the screen, making good advertisements speak for themselves and reassuring more people.

In the design of the advertising slogan, Nongfu Spring has a deep understanding of the key to successful marketing in the Marketing 3.0 era - value-based marketing, making the world a better place. It ingeniously expresses its brand management mission as an advertising slogan, " We don't produce water, we are just nature's porters" , showing the natural and pollution-free water quality and taste to consumers, making the image of natural and healthy water deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

In terms of the selection of raw materials for products, in addition to building factories in unpolluted water sources, Nongfu Spring has also spent a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources to build its own planting bases for navel oranges, apples, pomegranates, apricots, rice, tea, etc. Nongfu Spring not only sells fruits and grains, but also provides raw materials for its own product production. By tracing back to the source, the good quality can be seen by users.

Different from other brands that create their own marketing concepts, Nongfu Spring adopts a documentary model for almost every product promotion, restoring the "secrets" of Nongfu Spring products in a 1:1 ratio, allowing users to have a clearer and more three-dimensional understanding of Nongfu Spring's "natural and healthy" marketing concept.

3. Design concept: Understand that consumers are mobile and make each package unique

The design of each Nongfu Spring product can be said to be unique. According to Nongfu Spring, its high-end glass bottle water has gone through more than 50 drafts and more than 300 designs, and it took three years to achieve the product that is currently circulating on the market. At the same time, based on the original design style and concept of this high-end water, Nongfu Spring combined Chinese traditional culture to launch the twelve zodiac bottles. Its lifelike design is estimated to have taken a lot of thought from the brand.

For example, high-end water-beautiful printing comes from Changbai Mountain;

In the design of baby water, Nongfu Spring took into account the particularity of the user group in the design of the bottle. The bottle design is unique and more suitable for people with babies.

Nongfu Spring Student Mineral Water is even more interesting. The independently designed patented bottle cap and the childlike and playful bottle body bring a strong visual impact. The bottle cap design that fits the student user group brings a comfortable user experience.

In the Nongfu Spring water series, the designs of other products also reflect the brand’s unique sense of design and aesthetics, which is pleasing to the eye.

Nongfu Spring TOT sparkling water, Teaπ, Nongfu Orchard, Water-soluble C100, Vitamin Water, Lithium Water, Milk Tea, Oriental Leaves... each has its own unique design style.

What is more worth mentioning is that the Oriental Leaves produced by Nongfu Spring has developed an antioxidant process to control the oxygen content in the product to the highest level in the world, making the color of the tea soup more transparent, which has also become the core technical barrier of this product.

IV. Marketing Communication: Either no upgrade or upgrade to be classic

In terms of advertising, Nongfu Spring can be said to be a classic every time it makes a move, and many netizens jokingly call it a creative company that was delayed by selling water.

Classic advertising slogans that are unforgettable

Nongfu Spring Natural Water Advertising Slogan:

Nongfu Spring, a little sweet;

We don’t produce water, we are just nature’s transporters;

Every drop of water has its source;

What kind of water source gives birth to what kind of life.

It is not difficult to see that this series of marketing concepts builds the impression of "natural and healthy" water in the minds of users in a more intuitive and three-dimensional way, while making the brand slogan more vivid and vivid.

Nongfu Spring Nongfu Orchard advertisement:

Farmer's Orchard, shake before drinking

Mr. Bingfa believes that shaking before drinking has two meanings. One is that the product is genuine. Nongfu Spring reminds users that they need to "shake" before drinking juice, suggesting that consumers can make the drink taste better, and indirectly proves that the brand's juice content is high and easy to precipitate. The second is to create a sense of ritual for users to use the product. Through the "shaking" action, drinking Nongfu Orchard becomes a ritual set by the brand, increasing the product's memory point and experience.

Nongfu Spring is doing a good job in youth marketing

Take the #Small Bottle Graffiti Competition# that went viral last year as an example. Nongfu Spring seized the opportunity and interacted with users on the theme of "The small body hides a happy little secret", incorporating Nongfu Spring's unique copywriting into the interaction, which was fun and interesting.

Public relations activities: long-term hosting, either don’t do it, or do it for 100 years

Every time you drink a bottle of Nongfu Spring, you will donate one cent to children in poor mountainous areas.

As early as 2006, Nongfu Spring combined public welfare with brand marketing, telling consumers that "for every bottle of Nongfu Spring you drink, you will donate one cent to children in poor mountainous areas." Although this one-cent donation has received mixed reviews, Nongfu Spring has been taking action to care for the education of children in poor mountainous areas.

This year, Nongfu Spring cooperated with UnionPay to use natural water bottles as a carrier to connect users with children in mountainous areas, and used poetry as content to tell the story between Nongfu Spring and children.

At the same time, Nongfu Spring can be seen in the phenomenal IP "The Rap of China" and the training variety show "Idol Producer". In terms of communication with Generation Z, Nongfu Spring chose to cooperate with the Onmyoji game IP. Behind this series of marketing, the brand wants to inject youthful elements into itself and achieve brand rejuvenation.

5. Product extension: Insight into the needs of young people and create products that young people and even subculture groups like

In order to capture Generation Z users, who will be the main consumer force of the brand in the future, and to accurately reach the young market, Nongfu Spring has made market layout in terms of product extension and category breakthrough.

The launch of the hand-brewed coffee product "Charcoal Filtered Drip Coffee" is Nongfu Spring's official commercial layout to enter the coffee market.

With the increase in economic income of market consumers and the change of consumer groups, if a brand wants to gain a foothold in today's market, it needs to find economic growth points that match the brand characteristics in the fiercely competitive market. Nongfu Spring has chosen to seek the brand's market position in a diversified way.

As a brand in a highly competitive industry, Nongfu Spring has been able to cross cycles time and time again and lead the entire industry in the 25 years since its establishment. The key lies in its deep understanding of the importance of marketing to the company, grasping the transition of each marketing cycle and making the most correct decisions.

The advent of the Service 4.0 era also requires companies to start marketing with a Marketing 4.0 mindset. This cycle transition provides opportunities for many brands that hope to stand out in the industry.

Let's wait and see which other brands, besides Yuanqi Forest, can stand out in the market competition.

Author: Liu Yichun; Editors: Zhong Mingyue, Li Mingyao

WeChat public account: Liu Yichun’s brand business innovation (ID: shangyeyiguohui)