In 1993, Shaanxi Baoji Cigarette Factory launched Haomao cigarettes in response to the market vacancy of high-end cigarettes in Shaanxi. It became the representative of Shaanxi’s high-end cigarettes. People formed the understanding that “when giving good gifts, you must choose cigarettes.” "Haomao" once allowed Haomao to monopolize the market share of high-end cigarettes in Shaanxi.

In 2003, let’s look back at Haomao’s ten years of ups and downs. As mid-to-high-end cigarettes such as Sanwu, Yiyibi, Furong King, and Shangri-La aggressively attacked Shaanxi, and Haomao over the years There is no update on the brand image. Consumers feel that the image of Haomao is aging. In their words, "there is nothing new and it has not become popular in the past few years." Sales of Haomao cigarettes, which have been sold for ten years, have begun to decline year by year. , market share dropped sharply.

At that time, the author was working in a planning company and happened to conduct a large-scale research activity on Haomao cigarettes, with a research team of nearly 100 people; more than 1,000 consumers; and strong penetration into more than 500 business hotel dinner parties. ;Consumer contact with five major shopping malls including Zhongda International, Century Golden Flower, and Kaiyuan Mall; nearly a thousand valid questionnaires; two days of four full in-depth interview meetings, and impassioned speeches from nearly a hundred consumer opinion leaders...

Through in-depth communication with the target audience, many brand problems have come to light: Haomao’s brand has become suburbanized, sales have declined, taste has changed, foreign enemies have gained ground, Haomao’s brand communication has been interrupted, etc. .

These are the results of data analysis and research after research!

◆Is the taste of good cats really the culprit?

In fact, during our in-depth interviews, 90% of consumers believed that the taste of Haomao cigarettes was no longer good! Smoking is not as smooth as before. If we believe the results of the survey and really make suggestions to Bao Tobacco Factory, do you think the sales of Haomao with modified flavors will really increase?

In the subsequent blind evaluation, we selected several cigarettes with prices similar to those of Haomao, and stuck the trademark positions of their cigarette butts with stickers for consumers to smoke. The results of the blind evaluation showed that , the taste of Haomao ranks third among the four types of cigarettes! Of course, the taste factor of good cats definitely exists, and the circulation of fake cigarettes has the greatest impact on the taste of good cats. But the answer that sales are declining just because of taste is obviously untenable!

Good cats with modified taste may not be of much help in increasing sales. So what should we do? Could it be that the research is really useless?

After a month-long research activity, a lot of information obtained is quite useful, such as competitor situation, terminal situation, etc. We still can't get the true inner thoughts of consumers through single-lens discussion methods. There is no other way, so we use a very crude method - eavesdropping.

We took advantage of the network of more than 600 mid-to-high-end restaurants in Xi'an and went deep into the desktop to eavesdrop on them to understand their opinions on the products. Many of their complaints about cigarettes gave us a clear understanding of their complaints. direction, combined with in-depth interview data, the outline of Haomao’s ten-year brand image has gradually become clear.

◆The suburbanization of Haomao brand

Through information from many aspects, we once again filtered the problems that caused Haomao and found that the core problems are actually nothing more than two. The first problem is that the Haomao brand has an obvious trend of suburbanization;

Around 1997, the sales of Haomao cigarettes reached a peak, and at that time it almost monopolized the high-end cigarette market in Shaanxi, and everyone formed Everyone has a unanimous understanding: People who smoke Haomao cigarettes are extraordinary, and they are all smoked by big bosses and rich people! The dissemination of this kind of awareness was very attractive to China's new upstarts at that time;

People in the communication industry should all know that under the specific consumption environment formed by China's specific consumers, in the market There will be two situations: consumers at the back end of the consumption value chain will transfer consumption resources to purchase front-end products and services; or companies at the back end of the consumption value chain will imitate or learn from the product forms of front-end companies and let their own Consumption creates a feeling of upgrade.

At that time, the common bosses were all Haomao, which played a key role in driving the sales of Haomao cigarettes, because Haomao had almost no spread at that time, and it was mainly relying on this group of 20% core opinion leaders that drove the rapid growth of Haomao; but when When this kind of "all smoked by the boss" became a common understanding (at that time, rural consumers knew that Good Cat cigarettes were out of reach for them, and anyone who got Good Cat cigarettes would be envied) , those relatively high-end consumers can’t help it anymore, they also hope to use good cats to enhance their status and enjoy upgraded enjoyment;