Changsha cigarette factory was established in 1947. Baishajing, a famous spring in the south of the Yangtze River in Changsha, has been known as "white sand without water" since ancient times, and Mao Zedong also has the chant of "drinking Changsha water". As the leading brand of Changsha Cigarette Factory, "Baisha" is named after Gujing. Since 1975 came out, after more than 20 years' cultivation, "Baisha" series products have developed into national famous brands and the best-selling single brands in China. The product style of Changsha Cigarette Factory is unique among China tobacco enterprises. With its mellow taste, sweet taste and increasing safety, it is loved by more and more consumers in China. By the first half of 2000, a relatively complete product line had been formed. The main products are Baisha series, Hehe series, Nice series and Changsha series. With the continuous development of Changsha cigarette factory, the core concept and brand image of "dancing with cranes and flying with heart" are deeply rooted in people's hearts. 1995, the enterprise passed the 1S09002 quality system certification at home and abroad, and won the "Golden Horse Award" for national outstanding enterprises; 1997 and 1998 were all rated as "National Advanced Enterprises with Quality and Benefit" and won the "Special Award of National Advanced Enterprises with Quality and Benefit". At the end of 2000, Baisha Group, with Changsha Cigarette Factory as the core enterprise, covering six major industries, including tobacco, medicine, logistics, printing, financial investment and logistics services, was formally established, marking the enterprise.
The formation of diversified and collectivized development management mode; In 2002, various economic indicators continued to grow steadily, with the total output of cigarettes reaching 950,000 cases, sales income reaching 7.8 billion yuan and profits and taxes reaching 5.2 billion yuan. During the Tenth Five-Year Plan period, it was listed as one of the four major tobacco enterprises by the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau as "tracking the world's advanced technical level and keeping pace with the times". After 27 years of development, "Baisha" brand has become the largest cigarette brand in China, ranking first in the comprehensive competitiveness survey of the national cigarette product market. In 2002, it was successively recognized as "National Famous Trademark" and "China Famous Brand Product". In 2003, "Baisha" brand ranked first in the first national cigarette brand survey in big cities. Baisha products also broke through the "double 1 10,000 boxes" of total cigarette production and sales and single product sales, and jumped to the top of the national single brand sales for two consecutive years.
The growth of Baisha has always been accompanied by competition with Changde Cigarette Factory, another tobacco group in Hunan. In the mid-1990s, frequent smokers took the lead in aiming at the high-end market, launched Furong Wang, and interpreted the brand culture with the slogan of "creating infinity and experiencing success", so that the brand concept of "success" was deeply rooted in people's hearts. Just like the PDA market of that year, the brand image created by Furong Wang just met the needs of consumers, but also posed new challenges to the old rival Baisha. At that time, Baisha always used the packaging that Hunan people are very familiar with: Baisha ancient well, which represents Huxiang culture, represents auspicious white cranes. Baisha tobacco is considered as the representative of mid-range tobacco. However, with the development of the times, this image, which has been used for nearly 30 years, is somewhat aging in the face of market changes and consumer upgrades. 1999 survey shows that the main consumers in Baisha are a little older.
For Baisha, the task is to integrate and upgrade the original brand assets. That is, how to inject new vitality into the original brand assets and open up a brand road of sustainable development. Through investigation and comparison, Baisha decided to learn from the brand concept of Marlboro cigarettes and find her own cowboy. It defines the core value of the brand as "flying, the same pleasure as flying". The image association (visual symbol) of Baisha is a gesture eager to fly. The slogan of Baisha brand is "Crane dances in Baisha, my heart flies", and the new brand logo of Baisha is an abstract expression of the graceful posture of white crane flying.
With a clear positioning, Baisha decided to enrich its product line. However, before deciding to launch new products, whether to adopt single brand serialization or multi-brand strategy has become an urgent problem before Baisha.
Procter & Gamble and Unilever, the two giants of daily chemical and washing products in the world, have adhered to the multi-brand strategy and achieved great market success. In the home appliance industry with the strongest overall competitiveness in China, the most successful enterprise model is actually a single brand serialization strategy, and Haier is the typical example of this strategy. The related diversified extension of Haier brand has always been regarded as successful, which is very suitable for China's national conditions. However, domestic successful cigarette brands, such as Zhonghua and Hongtashan, have abandoned the development model of single brand serialization. After careful analysis, Lu Ping, president of Baisha Group, thinks that the so-called big brands in the tobacco industry are mainly monsters that grew up in the long-term planned economy era and monopoly system. Whether they can adapt to the market environment under complete market competition, perhaps all brands will be questioned. China tobacco imports have been severely restricted for a long time, with high import tariffs and strict non-tariff barriers. Foreign tobacco companies are doomed to be shut out like wolves. Nowadays, domestic companies will soon come out of their mother's infancy to face international competition, and brands are particularly important. To this end, Baisha decided to stick to the brand extension route, focus and strengthen the core connotation of the brand, and highlight the brand characteristics of Baisha. As a result, Baisha began to expand its product line with the theme of promoting brand rejuvenation, forming Baisha series, which officially started the battle for the high-end tobacco market: in May 2000, Baisha Silver World was launched; In June 2000, at 5438+00, Baisha Baoyin World (special packaging) was launched; From June 5438 to February 2000, Baisha Golden Century was launched. Through the efforts in product quality, market positioning, market access, and the strong support of the overall brand, several brand new products have achieved good results in the initial stage of listing.
Among them, the listing plan of Baisha Golden Century is particularly eye-catching.
Golden Century is a high-end cigarette launched by Baisha Group, which belongs to the same grade as Furong Wang and has higher quality. The golden century was carefully prepared by the chief formulator and the chief perfumer. Selected world-class tobacco leaves, 100% hand-selected; Adopt international advanced equipment and first-class tobacco-making technology, and make it fully enclosed; In strict accordance with the ISO9000 international quality control and guarantee system, the classic quality is guaranteed throughout.
Before the product went on the market, Baisha first studied the changes of consumption patterns and the life characteristics of high-consumption people under the new economic background. The research results show that it is the specific people who lead the mainstream of consumption in today's market, and their consumption concepts are gradually changing: in the past, they mainly pursued the quality of material life, but today, their consumption choices began to pay attention to culture and taste. "Talk about culture, talk about taste, talk about ideas", and the platform for communication between Baisha Golden Century and the target population is gradually clear. As Baisha people themselves said: "cigarettes are just a symbol, which casts a fog on people's minds." Without cigarettes, people are still the same. "
Baisha Golden Century has adopted an integrated marketing promotion method: the gifts with cigarettes include specially designed special-shaped matches, exquisite personalized bookmarks, antique cigarette cases and so on. The precious gift for the heavyweights is a cultural manual specially designed for the golden century of Baisha-"Behind the Burning", which has exquisite paper, hardcover, readable content and full collection value. The book "Behind the Burning" tells about past lives on cigarettes, and also selects a number of precious historical photos about celebrities and cigarettes, which are clear-cut and interesting. For example:
The history of cigarettes-Columbus's contribution is not only the discovery of cigarettes and politics in the New World of America-a cigarette, cigarettes and art in the world-cigarettes are the source of the creator's thoughts, cigarettes and the army-cigarettes are the general's staff, cigarettes and senses-a subtle and profound sensory experience of cigarettes and society-cigarettes reflect various phenomena and brands in various stages of social development-culture is the temperament of brands. Baisha Golden Century also shows new ideas in the choice and construction of selling points: in star-rated hotels, airport terminals and advanced entertainment places, the sign of selling points is a three-fold wooden antique screen, which is simple, natural and heavy. On the front of the screen is written the contents of the Baisha Culture Manual-about the historical origin of cigarettes, the culture behind cigarettes, great men, and interesting things related to cigarettes ...; In the middle of the screen is a small glass box with simple texture, which contains a golden cigarette case, a picture book on linen and high-grade craft smoking utensils. This selling point is very popular because of its characteristics. At the same time, outdoor advertisements, high-end magazines, sponsorship of New Year concerts and other advertisements and activities are also in full swing.
In several new product series, Baisha Silver World and Golden Century all take "flying" as the core concept of the brand. The former shows fashion and typical flying, while the latter shows transcendental flying. The launch of two new products not only improved the product structure of Baisha series, but also further enriched and strengthened the cultural connotation of Baisha.
Of course, whether the implementation of white sand brand strategy can really stand the test of the market remains to be verified. However, judging from the unsatisfactory market situation of Baisha Golden Century, the two sub-brands of Baisha Silver World and Baisha Golden Century do not seem to be completely successful, and the speed of brand growth is not fast enough. Although the design, packaging and marketing strategies of the Golden Century are perfect and the cutting tools are first-class, it has not become a hot spot in the market as expected.
In the eyes of consumers, there is already a solid leading brand. A survey of consumers in the tobacco industry by an organization shows that when choosing the first tobacco brand, 34% people choose Marlboro, 23% people choose Sanwu, 19% people choose Hongtashan, and others choose "China" and "Yuxi". It seems that it is not so easy for Baisha to reverse his impression in the minds of consumers through the promotion of the Golden Century. The powerful offensive of advertising has not changed consumers' psychology that Baisha is a medium-grade cigarette. What is the concept of "My heart is flying"? Can it bear the feeling of men smoking? Can it communicate with men in their hearts and make them remember the white sand? Baisha Golden Century is a stable leading brand in the eyes of consumers, with similar price and the same positioning. Will such positioning conflict? Baisha cigarette has always been the image of a mid-range cigarette in the eyes of consumers, and it belongs to a "tool-type" cigarette that meets the physiological needs of cigarette consumers. However, the "White Sands Golden Century" is positioned in the high-end tobacco market, and the consumer groups it faces are precisely those who pay attention to consumption experience and inner feelings. What they need is "prop cigarettes" to express their identity and meet their psychological needs. As a sub-brand of Baisha, Golden Century can enter the market with the same brand concept since it faces different consumers. Will it be accepted by consumers? Can a brand include two different concepts: props and tools? Judging from the current situation of Baisha promotion, these problems need to be studied, and Baisha strategy is thought-provoking.
Brand building of domestic tobacco enterprises has just started. Facing the market situation of foreign tobacco invasion, local blockade and increasingly fierce brand competition, how to shape and spread brands in the market development and promotion of new products and alleviate the confusion of brand extension has become the most urgent concern of China tobacco enterprises.
The failure of new coke
Since Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton invented the magic formula of Coca-Cola in 1886, Coca-Cola has been invincible in opening up the global market. 1On April 23rd, 985, in order to welcome Pepsi, Coca-Cola announced in new york that it would change the beverage formula that had been marketed for 99 years. This incident was called by The New York Times as one of the most important mistakes in American business circles in the past century.
In 1980s, the leading position of Coca-Cola in the beverage market was challenged, and the growth rate of Coca-Cola in the market dropped from 65,438+03% per year to only 2%.
When the giant hesitated, Pepsi created an extraordinary miracle. It first put forward the slogan of "Pepsi-Cola New Generation". This advertising campaign has captured the young people's fantasy mentality. This vibrant advertisement has greatly improved the image of Pepsi and firmly established its relationship with the largest part of consumers in the soft drink market. After the first round of advertising campaign was a great success, PepsiCo still focused on young people, continued to emphasize PepsiCo's "young image" and launched the second round of advertising campaign called "Pepsi Challenge". In this round of offensive, PepsiCo boldly conducted a live customer taste test, that is, invited participants to taste various drinks without brand logo without telling them that they were advertising, and then said which taste was the best. All the test processes were broadcast live. Pepsi's adventure was a success. After almost every experiment, the tasters think Pepsi is better. The "Pepsi Challenge" series of advertisements made PepsiCo's beverage market share in the United States soar from 6% to 14%.
The Coca-Cola Company did not believe this fact and immediately organized a tasting experiment. The result is the same as that of the Pepsi Challenge. People prefer the taste of Pepsi. The research of the market research department also shows that the pattern of Coca-Cola leading the beverage market is changing into the pattern of competition between Coca-Cola and Pepsi. In the 1970s, 65,438+08% beverage consumers only recognized the brand Coca-Cola, while only 4% people recognized Pepsi. In 1980s, only 65,438+02% consumers were loyal to Coca-Cola, while the number of consumers who only drank Pepsi rose to 65,438+065,438+0%, which was the same as Coca-Cola. During this period, Coca-Cola Company was much higher than Pepsi Company in both advertising expenses and website sales. It has twice as many vending machines as Pepsi, high-quality mineral water, larger shelf space and more competitive prices, but why did it lose its original market share?
Facing the challenge of Pepsi, 1980, in May, the board of directors of Coca-Cola accepted the recommendation of Austin and woodruff and appointed Goizueta as the general manager. After Goizueta became the chairman of the company on March 198 1, Donald Keogh took over as the general manager.
Soon, Goizueta held a general meeting of all managers. He announced that nothing is sacred to the company, and that reform is imminent and people must accept it. As a result, the company began to turn its attention to the investigation and study of the product itself. Evidence shows that taste is the only important factor leading to the decline of Coca-Cola. The formula has been used for 99 years, and it seems that it can't meet the taste requirements of consumers today. In this case, the company began to implement the Kansas plan-to change the taste of Coca-Cola.
Before developing the new Coca-Cola, the Coca-Cola Company secretly conducted a market research operation codenamed "Kansas Plan". It sent 2000 market researchers to investigate whether consumers accept a brand-new Coca-Cola in 10 major cities. These questions include: Will you add a new ingredient to Coca-Cola's formula to make it taste softer? If Coca-Cola tastes similar to Pepsi, will you feel uneasy? Do you want to try a new drink? The survey results show that only 10%- 12% customers are uneasy about the new taste of Coca-Cola, and half of them say they will adapt to the new taste of Coca-Cola, which shows that customers are willing to try the new taste of Coca-Cola. However, other tests provide some contrary information, and consumer groups of different sizes show strong approval and disapproval respectively.
1984 In September, the technical department of Coca-Cola Company decided to develop a new and more pleasant Coca-Cola, and finally took out a sample. This "new coke" is sweeter than Coca-Cola, with less foam, because the grain syrup it uses contains more sugar than sucrose, and it is a new beverage with a soft and exciting taste. The company immediately tested its unlabeled taste, and the test results made Coca-Cola company excited. Customers' satisfaction with the new coke surpassed that of Pepsi. Market researchers believe that this new formula of Coca-Cola can at least increase the market share of Coca-Cola by 65,438+0%-2%, which means an increase of 200-400 million sales.
In order to be sure, Coca-Cola Company invested 4 million dollars to conduct an unprecedented large-scale taste test before adopting new flavors. In 13 city, about 19 10000 people were invited to participate in the comparison of unlabeled Coca-Cola with different formulations. 55% of the participants prefer new coke, which shows that Coca-Cola beat Pepsi. The results of investigation and study seem to prove that there is no doubt about supporting the new formula.
Before the new coke is put into production, a series of auxiliary decisions must be implemented accordingly. For example, we must consider whether to add a new flavor of cola to the product category or replace the old cola with it. After repeated consideration, the top management of the company unanimously agreed to change the taste of Coca-Cola and withdraw the old Coke from the market.
1On April 23rd, 985, Goizu Aita, chairman of Coca-Cola Company, announced that after 99 years of development, Coca-Cola Company decided to give up the unchanging traditional formula because consumers prefer sweeter soft drinks. In order to meet this demand, Coca-Cola Company decided to change the formula, adjust the taste and launch a new generation of Coca-Cola. In order to introduce this new cola, Goizueta and Keogh held a press conference at Lincoln Center in new york. Invitations were sent to news media organizations all over the country, and about 200 journalists from newspapers, magazines and TV stations attended the press conference, but most of them were not convinced of the advantages of the new Coca-Cola, and their reports were generally negative. This skepticism of the news media will further aggravate the public's refusal to accept the new Coca-Cola in the future.
The news spread quickly.
8 1% of Americans knew this change within 24 hours, exceeding the number of people who knew that neil armstrong was walking on the moon in July 1969.
65.438+0.5 billion people tried the new Coca-Cola, which also exceeded the previous trial record of any new product. Most of the comments are in favor, and the demand of bottling plants has reached the highest point in five years. There seems to be no doubt about the correctness of the decision, but all this is a flash in the pan.
Within four hours of the launch of the new coke, 650 calls were received to protest against changing the taste of coke; By mid-May, there were as many as 5,000 emergency calls every day; In June, this figure rose to more than 8,000. Anger quickly spread to the whole country because of the incitement of the propaganda media. A 99-year-old beverage formula change, which was originally insignificant, has now become an insult to people's patriotism. Robert Antonio, a sociologist at the University of Kansas, said: "Some people feel that a sacred symbol has been rudely trampled." Even Goizueta's father opposed this change from the beginning. He warned his son that this change was a prelude to failure and jokingly threatened to break up with his son. Company leaders began to worry that consumers would unite to boycott their products.
What they saw was a disastrous listing effect: "I feel very sad because I know that not only can I no longer enjoy Coca-Cola, but my children and grandchildren can't drink it ... I think they can only hear this term from me." People once accused Coca-Cola of being a symbol of America and an old friend, and suddenly betrayed them. Some people threaten not to drink Coca-Cola in the future, and use tea or boiled water instead. Here are some examples of these reactions: "It's terrible! You should be ashamed of putting Coca-Cola's label on it ... This new thing tastes worse than Pepsi. " "Nice to meet you. You have been my old friend for 33 years. I drank a new coke for the first time yesterday. To be honest, if I want to drink coke, I will order Pepsi instead of Coca-Cola. "
In that spring and summer, the Coca-Cola Company received more than 40,000 such letters. In Seattle, some radical loyalists (who claimed to be American Coca-Cola drinkers) set up the organization "American Old Coca-Cola Drinkers" and threatened the Coca-Cola Company that they would sue if they didn't follow the old formula. Throughout the United States, people began to hoard old Coca-Cola that had been discontinued, which led to the price of this "tight drink" rising again and again. When the sales in July did not increase as expected by the company, the bottling factory asked for the supply of old coke.
The company's survey also confirmed the existence of growing negative emotions. Three months after the new Coke went on the market, its sales did not improve, but public protests intensified. Finally, Coca-Cola Company decided to resume the production of traditional formula. The news immediately caused a sensation in the United States. On the same day, 18000 thank-you calls entered the company's free hotline. In that month, Coca-Cola's sales increased by 8% year-on-year, and its share price climbed to the highest point of $2.37 per share since 12. But the Coca-Cola Company lost a lot in this operation.