Uni-President enterprises seized the opportunity of tea beverage development in time and launched unified tea beverages (including unified iced black tea, unified oolong tea and unified green tea) in Chinese mainland. Uni-president tea beverage is the representative brand of Uni-president enterprise to gain competitive advantage in China beverage market. As the main representative of unified tea beverage, unified iced tea was first listed in East China in June 1995. In order to adapt to China people's natural preference and drinking habits for green tea, Uni-President introduced Uni-President Green Tea, Uni-President Iced Green Tea and Uni-President Oolong Tea in succession in 2000.
There are three main types of packaging used for unified tea drinks-1000 ml, 500ml PET bottles, 375ml cans and Tetra Pak packaging. Among them, 500ml and 375ml packaged unified tea drinks are the most common in supermarkets and grocery stores. Market competition situation
Tea beverage is the fastest-growing beverage in Europe and America in the 1990s, and it is regarded as a new era beverage. In Taiwan Province Province and Japan, tea drinks have surpassed carbonated drinks to become the largest beverage in the market. 95% of beverage enterprises in Taiwan Province Province produce tea drinks. In recent years, in the international market, tea drinks have developed at an annual growth rate of 17%. There are 200 kinds of tea drinks in Japan, with an annual consumption of 3.6 million tons. Sales of tea drinks in the United States also reached $2 billion. Tea drinks in China first appeared in 1995. According to a survey by AC Nielsen, the tea beverage market in China has developed at a rate of over 300% in recent years, and tea beverage has become the third largest beverage after carbonated drinks, with a rapid growth. Statistics in 2002 show that the output of tea drinks in China has reached nearly 500,000 tons. At present, there are more than 10 large and medium-sized enterprises producing tea drinks in China, and there are more than 100 listed brands.
The main competitors of Uni-President Tea Beverage include:
1. Tea drinks (including Master Kong iced black tea and iced green tea) launched by Ding Xin Company in Taiwan Province Province started from instant noodles in Chinese mainland. Master Kong iced black tea is a new beverage launched by Ding Xin International Group's beverage business group on June 1997. It adds lemon flavor to tea. At present, Kangshifu tea beverage ranks first in the domestic tea beverage market, and the price ranges from 2.5 to 3 yuan.
2. The extraordinary series of tea drinks produced by Wahaha (Wahaha iced black tea with Dianhong black tea and Qimen black tea as raw materials and Wahaha organic green tea with organic Longjing tea as raw materials). The company will not only set up filling plants in Shenzhen and Changsha, but also invite "king of comedy" Stephen Chow to explain the brand concept of extraordinary tea drinks with the theme of "Paradise Water, Longjing Tea".
In the summer of 2002, BPW, a new company jointly established by Nestle and Coca-Cola Company, launched Nestle iced tea. Nestle Bingshuang Tea has created a unique western-style tea flavor that combines eastern and western tea cultures, targeting white-collar workers and young people aged 20 to 29 who are pursuing fashion. At present, there are only 500ML PET bottles on the market, and the price ranges from 2.5 to 2.8 yuan.
4. In 2002, Shenzhen Founder Technology introduced American ginseng tea with pure American ginseng, refined honey with flowers and Siraitia grosvenorii as raw materials, and Barbie also introduced "flower and fruit tea".
5. Domestic enterprises such as Rising Sun, Shenzhen Vitasoy, Wellcome, Xiaoheizi and many other local brands.
6. In addition to Suntory, which has occupied the Shanghai market for many years, overseas capital, Japanese beer brands Kirin and Asahi also entered the China tea beverage market.
Among many competitors, Master Kong Tea Beverage is the toughest competitor of Unified Tea Beverage. Although Master Kong launched tea drinks in Chinese mainland later than Uni-President, the tea drinks of Master Kong have always been aimed at the new generation of consumers, hitting a very important psychological state of young consumers in time-advocating trends and expressing self-individuality. In line with the product slogan of Master Kong's iced black tea, the selling point of the product is "iced" tea beverage, and Richie Jen, a movie star, is boldly used as the image spokesperson to interpret his sunshine and personality. Precise and distinctive product positioning, tacit cooperation of spokesperson image, and constant singing and promotion activities in various places, Master Kong achieved great success in the year of iced tea, doubled its sales performance, became the biggest winner in the tea beverage war in Chinese mainland in 2000-2002, and occupied the top spot in the mainland iced tea market.
Unified competitive strategy
The target markets of Unified Tea Beverage and Master Kong Tea Beverage almost overlap. After many large-scale surveys and taste tests, it is determined that the young group aged 15-23 is a heavy consumer group of iced black tea. These new generation groups pursue personalized life, like to express themselves and are willing to accept new things. Grasp the life attitude of heavy consumer groups and create a brand image that highlights individuality and self-expression. Get rid of the conventional promotion mode, bring forth the old and bring forth the new everywhere, and attract market attention.
In view of Master Kong's marketing strategy, Uni-President hopes to curb the market share of Master Kong's green tea through its fist product "Uni-President Iced Black Tea". Create star products and use iced black tea to drive consumers' awareness of green tea, iced black tea and oolong tea series. Because the unified consumer group of iced black tea-15-23 young people are mostly students at school. The brand concept of unified iced tea making young people shine has been warmly welcomed by young people, from the initial gifts for boys and girls, cool cyber warfare, cross-strait bowling contest to the "unified iced tea shining star" student singer selection contest, which has aroused strong repercussions in colleges and universities across the country. The success of these activities quickly promoted the sales of "unified iced black tea" and greatly increased its market share. And forced its main competitor, Ding Xin Company, to hold the "Master Kong Iced Black Tea" Ice Pioneer Band Trial on the national university campus after the unified "Unified Iced Black Tea Shining Star College Student Singer Trial".
In view of the success of Master Kong's iced tea in image promotion, in 2002, Uni-President iced tea launched a new slogan of "Young without limit" and launched a series of related advertisements according to the new slogan. At the same time, according to its main consumers, Uni-President also launched a new generation of diva, Stephanie, as the image spokesperson of Uni-President iced tea. For a time, Stephanie's sunny image, cordial smile and advertisements for unified iced tea spread all over the streets. In the process of competition, in addition to the basic types (iced black tea, green tea, iced green tea, oolong tea), new varieties of tea drinks are introduced from time to time to meet the needs of consumers with different tastes. So far, the new products of unified tea beverage include Qimen black tea and iced jasmine tea. In addition, Unification also highlighted the concept of "ice" for Master Kong, and according to the seasonal changes, the propaganda strategy of using "unified greenhouse" together with other unified drinks was successful in the winter of 2002.
Analysis and suggestions
1, on product segmentation and positioning
Strengthen the promotion of unified green tea, adopt a unified product strategy to shape star products, and use iced black tea to drive the consumption cognition of green tea, iced black tea and oolong tea series. However, all the marketing propaganda is aimed at iced black tea, and the sales of iced black tea have indeed increased, but it has not driven the sales of green tea, iced black tea and oolong tea. Starting from the concept of health, people admire green tea more, and there are many consumers of green tea. At present, the main competitor, Master Kong Tea Beverage, is the same as Uni-President, focusing on iced black tea. Uni-President enterprises can seize the opportunity to expand the promotion of green tea, expand the overall capacity of the tea beverage market, and achieve the purpose of expanding sales.
The integration of green tea and iced green tea As far as green tea products are concerned, there are both "unified green tea" and "unified iced green tea", and ordinary consumers can't tell the difference between them at all, which artificially creates obstacles in marketing communication. In order to avoid this obstacle, we can integrate these two kinds of green tea, keep "unified iced green tea" and focus on promoting the health concept of "iced green tea".
Introduce tea drinks suitable for middle-aged people. In real life, there are many consumers aged 30-50. Although quite a few of these consumers have the habit of making their own tea, they often choose to buy tea drinks when they go out, and they need to buy drinks because of their habit of drinking tea. Unified tea drinks, unified can be aimed at this part of the consumer groups, adopt differentiated strategies to launch tea drinks suitable for this part of the population, fill the gap of tea drinks at present, and occupy this part of the market first.
In view of the fact that tea drinks are sugary drinks at present, in order to attract the needs of consumers who have traditional tea drinking habits and don't like sugary tastes, we can also launch sugar-free tea drinks in due course.
Adapt to different consumption habits. At present, consumers drink tea drinks mostly to quench their thirst on the road, on the street or when they travel, have an outing or visit the park. Many people also choose to drink tea to replenish water after sports in the playground. However, in fact, many people, especially young people, drink tea at home. In view of this consumer demand, we can increase the promotion of tea drinks and household clothes.
2. Competitive strategy
It is proved to be correct to expand the total market and unify the target market of products with young consumers. However, the unified definition of the age of target consumers is too narrow. Although the tea beverage manufacturers in the market have always locked the consumer group in the young group. But in fact, the consumers of tea drinks should be those who have no time and energy to make their own tea and want to drink tea. Once Uni-President locates its products in this way, it will certainly expand the market capacity of its tea drinks.
After several years of development, the mainland tea beverage industry has entered a mature stage, and the quality of similar products is very similar. For example, there is almost no difference in raw materials and tastes between Uni-President iced tea and Master Kong iced tea, but in terms of product price, Uni-President and Master Kong have similar pricing for tea drinks. 500ML PET bottled tea drinks are all around 3 yuan, with high profit margins, while the prices of other brands with the same packaging, especially local brands, are between 1.5-2.5. In this case, Uni-President can increase the number of bottles opened for free drinks, appropriately reduce product prices or implicitly reduce prices, so as to expand market share.
According to different tea consumption areas in China, different kinds of tea drinks are promoted. For example, Fujian has always been used to drinking oolong tea, and unified oolong tea can be promoted in Fujian; Jiangsu and Zhejiang have long been accustomed to drinking green tea such as Longjing, and unified iced green tea or unified iced jasmine can be actively promoted in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
The application of public communication Although the unified tea beverage has made great achievements in public communication such as "the shining star of unified iced black tea", it can also highlight the image of the product in other public communication. For example, in the hot summer, Uni-President can provide free tea drinks for traffic police comrades who work in the hot summer, highlighting the public welfare image of the products.
The quality of unified tea beverage products is stable. If we can improve product segmentation/positioning and competitive strategy, it is expected to surpass Master Kong tea beverage and occupy the leading position in China tea beverage market.