Chapter 8 Marketing Archives A Sun God's Marketing Mistakes

In the growth history of Chinese enterprises, Helios is a specimen of "diversification trap". 1993 was the most glorious year for Helios, with a record turnover of 1.3 billion yuan, but it was also the year when the nightmare began.Huai Hanxin implements diversified investment.He invested 340 million yuan in more than 20 projects including oil, real estate, computers, and hotels, but none of them made a profit.However, Huai Hanxin also made a series of inexplicable mistakes just from the marketing of health care products. 1. Two recipes conquer the world. Huai Hanxin's view on new product development is "unique".He believes that Coca-Cola and Pepsi can last for a long time with only one formula, and Helios only needs to make some new formulations on the basis of the concentrate.In the past ten years, Sun God has been relying on two products of biological oral liquid and Hericium erinaceus oral liquid to conquer the world.

2. Brand superstition. The success of the CI strategy has caused the decision-makers of Sun God to suffer from "brand superstition".I think that even a stone can be sold for money if it is packaged with the brand of the sun god. After 1996, when Feilong and Sanzhu rose one after another, Helios adopted the marketing strategy of "high price and high promotion". 3. The victim of the berserk. Helios has always been entangled in the health care product industry, but it is trying to win the market with noble and elegant advertising.In the storm of health care products that are fiercely competitive, lack rationality and integrity, and will never follow the rules, Sun God continues to launch a series of advertisements full of artistic atmosphere and new era concepts in an attempt to use idealism. They use gestures to "influence" the market, but completely ignore the commercial promotion function of advertisements, and eventually become the victims of being devoured by the violent ones.

4. A testing ground for young talents. After achieving some success, that is, in 1990, Huai Hanxin "released his military power with a glass of wine", purging all the veterans who fought with him back then, and replacing them with a large number of young talents who had just graduated from colleges.These people are very ambitious, but lack the necessary market experience.They regard the Sun God as a test field, so that the company's marketing policy has been changed every year, repeatedly delaying the opportunity in the bewildered internal friction. 5. Brothers are rivals.

Helios has become the "Whampoa Military Academy" of China's health care products industry.Its open talent training system has cultivated a large number of marketing talents, but after accumulating experience, these people have left Helios one after another for various reasons, or stand on their own, or seek refuge in peer companies with expensive personalities, and finally turn to the market. The encirclement and suppression of the sun god began.Therefore, some people have slightly modified the famous advertising slogan of the sun god to describe this phenomenon: "When the sun rises, our brothers have become rivals."

6. Weak marketing innovation. In 1997, Helios began to shrink its front line, established a new pattern of health care products, beverages, and pharmaceuticals, and took shampoo, calcium supplementation, and storm weight loss as new profit growth points.However, Helios has always lacked innovation in the construction of the marketing system, and its core marketing capabilities have been gradually lost. It has never been able to achieve success only by human marketing and brand promotion, so that repeated failures have exhausted the spirit of the enterprise. 7. Foreign MBA radical chaos.

In 1997, Huai Hanxin resigned from the position of president and hired Wang Zheshen, an MBA from Harvard University, as president, trying to turn the tide with "airborne troops".However, Wang has no experience in the marketing of health care products, and he can't even understand Chinese characters.As soon as he got started, he fired several senior managers, replaced a large number of regional marketing directors, and radical reforms artificially brewed a chaotic drama of talent fleeing.After more than two years, Wang Zheshen withdrew from the Sun God, leaving a deadlock that no one can solve. On January 14, 2002, Huai Hanxin sold 415 million shares, which accounted for 50.91% of the company's equity, to Hong Kong Mansheng Biotechnology Co., Ltd., sadly giving up the decision-making power over the sun god.