At the beginning of summer last June, Yuanqi Forest encountered a wave of "pseudo-Japanese" drinks that misled consumers.

In the face of the real money that the consumer market and capital market continue to provide, these doubts may really be insignificant in the eyes of the brand, and they are not considered a big problem.

But from the perspective of Chopstick Wan Thinking, there is another possibility, that is, you really don’t dare to respond, and you don’t have a good way to respond, let alone make actual changes after responding.

As a new soft drink brand that has become rapidly popular in the past three or four years, Yuanqi Forest can be said to be the light of a new generation of domestic products. It has not only triggered the big players in the field of packaged beverages to follow suit, but also focuses on appearance and appearance. The "zero sugar" "sparkling water" has also led Heytea, the leading Internet celebrity in the new tea drinking industry, to follow the trend and make sparkling water products, and even led to "zero sugar" stocks - supplying the artificial sweetener erythrose The leading stock "Baolingbao" surged more than 60% in 9 days.

However, such a promising domestic brand debuted in Japanese style, placing itself in an eye-catching but dangerous position from the beginning. Yuanqi Forest, which has become popular because of its "pseudo-Japanese style", will not soon be able to shed its Japanese style label due to doubts, because once it does not have this label, it will not find its own foothold and will soon be submerged in the There is a huge competitive market for soft drinks.

So, what kind of crisis is facing the Yuanqi Forest, which seems to be indifferent but is actually in a dilemma? Perhaps the "three knives" of marketing that Yuanqi Forest is proud of may eventually become the three "original sins" that are spurned? Vitality has become the "original sin", one of the three sins of Yuanqi Forest's marketing: Japanese

Whether it is on Tmall Mall or on supermarket shelves, if they do not identify it carefully, consumers are likely to think that "vitality" Forest" is a Japanese brand of drink.

Genki Forest's products use the Japanese Chinese character "気" and place it in the most conspicuous position on the bottle. On the back are the words "Supervised by Japan Co., Ltd. Genki Forest". These words and The fonts are all exquisitely designed, and anyone who knows a little bit about Japanese product design style will feel the strong "Japanese style".

The "Beihai Ranch" yogurt that has frequently appeared on major platforms since last year is also the work of Yuanji Forest. These five yogurt products are all sugar-free, and the color and shape of the yogurt boxes are as cool as ever.

There is a type of yogurt whose name still uses the Japanese word "旗色yogurt", and another type of yogurt called "Hokkaido 3.1 sucrose-free yogurt", which uses the Japanese place name Hokkaido, while another type of yogurt is called "Beihai Ranch Japan LP28" "Yoghurt" is clearly marked as jointly developed with the Plant Lactobacillus Research Institute of Hiroshima University, Japan.

Consumers who have a little knowledge of imported food, especially Japanese imported food, will inevitably mistakenly think that this is an imported product series under the attack of such words and images. In fact, this brand is a purely domestic product born and raised in China.

According to Qichacha’s information, Yuanqi Forest (Beijing) Food Technology Group Co., Ltd. was established in 2016 with its registered address in Chaoyang District, Beijing. Beihai Ranch (Beijing) Dairy Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of Yuanqi Forest. capital subsidiary.

But in fact, the registered company of Yuanji Forest is Beijing Yuanqi Forest Beverage Co., Ltd., and the company called "Yuanji Forest Co., Ltd." established in Tokyo, Japan was established by Beijing Yuanji Forest. In other words, you have to supervise your own production. At the same time, its Beijing company also transferred the applied Japanese trademarks such as "Edo Saryo", "けしき", and "沢" to its branches established in Japan, in order to "bleach" its identity.

If we say, this is just a matter of commercial caution, because after all, the drinks imported from Japan are expensive and limited in quantity, which is a gap in the market. Yuanqi Forest wants to use Japanese-style drinks Designed to occupy this undeveloped virgin land. Then, after tasting the sweetness and starting to imitate it in every possible way, there is obviously something wrong.

According to consumers, several products of Yuanji Forest are similar in appearance to well-known Japanese brands.

Yuanji Forest sells a new tea product gift box "Burning Tea" in the Tmall flagship store. Careful netizens discovered that the appearance design, color matching, and pattern of this tea product are similar to those of famous Japanese tea brands. LUPICIA is very similar.

At the same time, the cartoon image of a little girl on the packaging of a milk tea drink launched by Yuanji Forest was also questioned as plagiarizing the image of Fujia Lollipop's "Fujia Doll PEKO Sauce".

This is no longer just a "pseudo-Japanese" commercial operation, it is already blatantly suspected of infringement. Once it is recognized by the public as plagiarism, Yuanji Forest's brand image is in danger of collapsing.

Anyone familiar with the industry knows that Japan’s food industry is top-notch. They invented instant noodles and MSG. They are at the forefront of the world in the invention of ready-to-eat foods and the transformation of food industrialization. Canned tea The beverage market is also ahead of China. Japan’s sugar-free beverage market is very mature, and the concept of “no sugar added” to tea or soda has begun to penetrate into China. However, the domestic sales price of imported Japanese beverages is relatively high. Imitation of Japanese style can take advantage of the “Japanese local brand advantage” With the advantages of "domestic design, operation and production", this operation mode is undoubtedly more cost-effective and can quickly occupy the market.

However, the risk is to go too far in "imitating Japanese style" and eventually fail.

?Vitality has become the "original sin", the second of the three sins of Yuanqi Forest's marketing: the health concept of "0 calories and 0 sugar"

In terms of marketing strategies to seize the market, Yuanqi Forest The second key method is to work hard on "0 calories and 0 sugar", that is, to set a new concept to cater to the current young people's needs for health, fitness and zero burden.

Because of the health elements and the refreshing new concept of "sparkling water", the retail price of Yuanqi Forest is as high as 5 yuan in the convenience store channel. This price does not affect sales. In the money-burning layout After channels and marketing, Yuanqi Forest’s sales surged. In last year's Tmall 618, Yuanqi Forest's sales surpassed Coca-Cola's and became the first in the water beverage category, with sales exceeding 800 million yuan in the first half of the year.

Yuanqi Forest’s C-end 0-calorie, 0-sugar “Aile Sweet” includes red sugar alcohol and sucralose, of which sucralose is the most commonly used non-sugar sweetener and is used in Sprite and Coke. , Wahaha are more common. Another main ingredient is erythritol. Yuanqi Forest places erythritol in a prominent position in the ingredient list, but it is not the most mainstream sweetener at the moment. Compared with other sugar substitute sugar alcohols, the price and output are lower.

In fact, sugar-free and low-sugar products have been around for a long time. Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola have both launched their own artificial sweetener products. In our country, in addition to sucrose, natural sugar sweeteners such as fructose and starch sugar (maltose, glucose) are also widely used.

Erythritol is also a type of non-sugar sweetener. It is a functional sugar alcohol, has low calories and does not participate in sugar metabolism and blood sugar changes. However, compared to natural sugars, sweeteners are delayed in transmission on the human tongue, so many products also add fructose to make up for the lack of sweetness at the beginning.

In contrast, fructose enters the human intestine directly and is digested and utilized by the body. Like sucrose, excessive intake can also lead to obesity, diabetes, etc.

According to relevant evaluations, a lot of fructose is added to Yuanqi Forest’s internet celebrity product milk tea. Therefore, Yuanqi Forest cleverly changed "0 sugar" into "0 sucrose" and used the low-calorie erythritol to make a big fuss, but at the same time added high-calorie fructose. This method is very misleading. sex.

Of course, among more and more foods labeled "sugar-free" or "zero calorie", "erythritol" is prominent in the ingredient list and has become an upstart in the sugar substitute industry, but Although there is much evidence that erythritol is safe to consume, some studies have found that it may cause diarrhea when consumed in excess. Especially when consumed with fructose, the likelihood of diarrhea appears to be greater.

Our understanding of sugar substitutes is limited to the current research results. There is still some controversy in the industry about the safety of sugar substitutes. Some studies believe that sugar substitutes have a series of benefits for the human body, but some studies show that sweeteners may affect sugar metabolism by accelerating the transport of glucose in the intestines and changing the composition of intestinal flora.

Chopstick Wan Thinking believes that health and safety may ultimately come from real “zero sugar” rather than “pseudo-zero sugar”, but this is not realistic for the Chinese market. Yuanqi Forest’s zero-sugar promotion also faces challenges at all times.

Lies can never be covered up.

On April 10, Yuanqi Forest issued an apology statement saying that in the product labeling and promotion of its milk tea products, the difference between "0 sugar" and "0 sucrose" was not explained, which could easily lead to misunderstandings. The packaging of most of the milk tea produced by Yuanqi Forest since February 4th and all milk tea produced from March 18th has been changed from the original "0 sucrose and low fat" to "low sugar and low fat". Yuanqi Forest also reminds: Milk tea contains milk, so it contains sugar.

?Yuanqi has become the "original sin", the third of the three deadly sins of Yuanqi Forest's marketing: online brainwashing promotion

According to Chopstick Wansiwei's understanding, Yuanqi Forest has been established for more than 4 years Li*** has gone through several rounds of financing, including angel round, round A and round B. It has just recently announced a strategic financing of about US$500 million, with a valuation of about US$6 billion, and its development trend is relatively rapid. Its founder Tang Binsen said that "most of the financing will be invested in marketing." He said that marketing is mainly online, using Internet companies' traffic routines to name TV programs, inviting popular celebrities to endorse, and using word-of-mouth marketing to capture the market. KOLs on Xiaohongshu and Weibo are indeed a waste of money.

As a result, Yuanqi Forest has become a beverage brand that calls itself an Internet company.

This is also attributed to the founder himself. It is understood that Tang Binsen, the actual controller of Yuanqi Forest (Beijing) Food Technology Group Co., Ltd., was the CEO of the social game developer "Zhixingtong" and developed Kaixin Farm games, Yuanqi Forest are cross-border entrepreneurship. But this generation is the first wave of Internet natives, and they are well aware of the "itch" of online promotion.

Therefore, in the beverage industry where channels are king, Yuanji Forest’s products did not compete head-on with the beverage giants through traditional channels, but first conquered various hills on the Internet. The first is to enter Tmall, JD.com, Xiaohongshu and other platforms and open official stores. The second is to launch intensive marketing on major social platforms.

Because these platforms mentioned above are the easiest places to gather target audiences. For example, on Xiaohongshu, if you search for keywords such as "sugar control", "sugar quitting", "sugar cutting", etc., you can see that there are more than 100,000 notes, and there are 360,00 notes for the word "calories". There are also 100,00 notes for the word "calorie". It can be said that there are a large number of people who have a hatred for sugar and calories. They continue to search for content and products about sugar control every day. The notes on planting grass for natural Yuanji Forest sugar-free drinks are also These people will be covered on a large scale.

In addition to Xiaohongshu, Yuanqi Forest is widely covered in Douyin, Kuaishou and various live broadcast rooms, and celebrities and Internet celebrities are also selling goods online. From content planting to pulling out goods, Yuanji Forest "brainwashes" consumers through fragmented and continuous content output.

However, how long the effects of intensive brainwashing advertising can last has become a question, because the soft drink market has two characteristics: 1) There are many players and giants. Many brands have already rushed to the battlefield "carrying three-meter-long swords"; 2) Consumer loyalty is extremely low, they like the new and hate the old, and there is a possibility of being attracted by other new brands at any time. These two points are the biggest obstacles to whether Yuanqi Forest can continue to grow rapidly based on various concepts.

Coca-Cola launched the sparkling juice drink "Appletiser" last year. The main raw materials of this product are reconstituted apple juice and carbon dioxide. It is mainly aimed at high-end consumption scenarios such as parties, meals, and bartending; a domestic brand famous for the production of orange soda Arctic Ocean launched a new sub-brand "Arctic Bears" in November last year, and also regarded "0 sugar, 0 fat, and 0 calories" as a major selling point.

In April last year, the once "national brand" beverage Jianlibao also launched a new product "micro-bubble water", which focuses on the healthy attributes of 0 sugar and 0 fat, and adds about 30% of dietary fiber that meets the daily needs of adults.

Other soft drink giants such as Wahaha, Watsons, Nongfu Spring, Laoshan and other big brands have also joined the melee in the soda field.

"Xi Cha", a well-established offline internet celebrity, also joined the battle for sparkling water and launched "Xi Xiao Tea" soda on July 12 last year.

Relying on the health concept and packaging design, coupled with the intensive online advertising and marketing bombardment, Yuanqi Forest quickly broke out from the soft drink market melee and became a dark horse, but brainwashing marketing requires a lot of money Support, but at the same time, it cannot over-market and exceed the bottom line, which may lead to accidental overturning. Yuanqi Forest needs to constantly find consumption pain points and deal with the encirclement and suppression of competitors.

?Conclusion

Compared with its imitation objects such as Japanese sugar-free sparkling water and sugar-free tea drinks, Genki Forest is still a child. Japan's Itoen developed the country's first canned tea beverage in 1981, while China only had its first tea beverage in 1993.

Japan’s food industry is quite strong. In the beverage industry alone, there are world-renowned beverage brands such as Kirin, Asahi, Takara and Suntory. Moreover, these brands are world leaders in product research and development and brand marketing. In terms of market segmentation, these Japanese local brands have a profound insight into the consumer needs of young people, and have achieved perfect product development, even attracting international giants such as Coca-Cola follows suit.

As a new soft drink brand, Yuanqi Forest needs more accumulation and in-depth study and research of "idols" to truly innovate in product development, packaging design and other aspects, rather than just blindly of stalking, plagiarism and imitating others. For domestic marketing, Yuanqi Forest also needs to find a balance point to prevent the initial strong development momentum from turning into subsequent overwhelming resistance due to some key issues.