Chapter 54 3. Why do you plan?

So far, we can be sure that the "water war" that took place in 2000 is undoubtedly the "most famous water war" in the history of Chinese enterprises. Eye-opener.However, what is still uncertain or foggy to many people is who is the ultimate winner of this "water war". What won applause for Yangshengtang was obviously the "wonderful" plan that surprised many people: who would have thought of stopping the production of purified water to attack by retreating?Who would have imagined that children who are as pure as pure water will charge forward and wave their flags for themselves?And who can stir up the debate about a bottle of water and attract all the attention?

In fact, the planning of Yangshengtang did not begin with the battle of pure water.Let us do a brief review together—— In 1993, "How to repay the grace of nurturing" Guibie Pills: "Ten Types of Diseases, Thousands of Patients" and "Hundreds of Disease-Resistant Warriors" Great Search, "100% Wild Turtles and Turtles in Hainan" Travel Notes; In 1995, "Beauty from the Inside Out" Duoer Capsule: "A Good Wife in My Mind" Essay Competition, "When is a Woman the Most Beautiful" set up a question-and-answer activity; In 1997, "Nongfu Spring is a bit sweet": "Drink a bottle of Nongfu Spring, you donate a penny for the Olympic bid" big action, "One penny one wish, one penny one power" Sunshine Project to care for poor children;

In 2001, "Want to know the taste of Qingzui?" Qingzui lozenge; In particular, the sentence "Nongfu Spring is a little sweet" won applause from all the halls and was regarded as a classic by planning colleagues.It should be said that throughout the 1990s, amidst the ups and downs of countless Chinese companies, Yangshengtang rose rapidly with its warm and humanistic branding. A unique landscape that can be spotted. Yangshengtang Company basically does not have "returnees" in suits and leather shoes, let alone blue-eyed overseas corps, and its planning relies on "family members".This has to start with the president of the company, Zhong Jinjin.Zhong is generally a low-key mysterious figure. There are not many media reports about his personal data, and there are few records on the Internet.

It is understood that President Zhong joined Zhejiang Daily around the early 1980s and has been working as a reporter for the rural department.In 1988, when Hainan was established as a province, he suddenly disappeared from the Zhejiang newspaper compound, and the place where "Xiahai" landed was thousands of kilometers away in Hainan.Messages have since become ambiguous.One theory is that he worked as a Hainan distributor of Wahaha children's nutrient solution. In 1993, Yangshengtang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., which was built in Jinpan Industrial Development Zone, Haikou City, Hainan, was established. A pill of Guibie made Zhong Jinjin come back out of the arena.Duoer Capsules, Nongfu Spring, Qingzui Lozenges, Chewable Vitamin Tablets for Children of Happy Growth, all of which are unstoppable. In the mid-1990s, Zhong quietly returned to Hangzhou, and the company was headquartered in the Youth Activity Center on the bank of West Lake, a few kilometers away from Wahaha.According to analysis, there are two reasons for him to return to Hangzhou: one is that he has a good grasp of the atmosphere of this land, which can be said to be well known; the other is that Yangshengtang is preparing to get involved in the lucrative drinking water industry, and Hangzhou is a gathering place for heroes from all walks of life in the water market. strategic commanding heights. In 2000, the headquarters of Yangshengtang moved into the side building of Hangzhou Huanglong Sports Center, which has an inconspicuous appearance.

In the impression of the media reporters who interviewed the "master" of the health care hall, President Zhong is physically strong, decisive and aggressive, quite domineering, and often shows a meaningful "bad smile" unique to journalists. ".Looking around him again, Jiang Minfan, the vice president in charge of the company's sales, is his old colleague of "Zhejiang Daily", a senior reporter with a good brain.Zheng Bo, the assistant to the president of the company, was also born in the "Zhejiang Economic News" sponsored by the Zhejiang Branch of Xinhua News Agency. He is young and shrewd.A news team like the decision-making cadres is probably rare in the corporate world across the country.Such a news team also determines that Yangshengtang has an extraordinary planning awareness and planning level.

The key is results.What did the pure water war bring to the initiator Yangshengtang?This is not like when I was a reporter back then, sending out a sharp-edged critical article was so exciting and exciting, and when it was over, I patted my ass and left, what can you do to me?This is running a business, and the business needs to obtain profits in exchange for survival and development. Yangshengtang's books have always been kept under wraps, and the company has never announced convincing results to the outside world. But a common saying is that in a water battle, Yangshengtang wins the mouth but loses the body.

At the beginning of 2002, the reporter Ding Ding published a tracking analysis titled "The Marketing Dilemma of Nongfu Spring" in the southern "21st Century Business Herald": "According to an industry insider who worked in Nongfu Spring at that time, at the end of 2000, The performance of Nongfu Spring, which has won the battle of "natural water and pure water", has fallen sharply. Many distributors have suffered losses due to Nongfu Spring's unstable sales policy. Nongfu Spring itself has also generated a large amount of inventory and huge losses. The largest The problem is that in some regions there is even an inversion of wholesale and retail prices, and the channel is already in crisis."

There are also reports that, regarding the launch of the pure water war, Yangshengtang’s internal planners and marketing staff had two completely different views at that time: the planners thought it was a successful operation, the company’s reputation was far and wide, and the effect was even better than However, the sales staff insisted that the market situation is not rising but falling, so there is nothing to boast about, and things are obvious. "Yangshengtang is engaged in a marketing plan of unfair competition, not a successful marketing plan. These are two different concepts, and the results are naturally different." Zong Qinghou commented in an interview with the media.

The marketing plan mentioned by Lao Zong obviously covers the general sense of market planning, not only refers to brainstorming and coming up with an exquisite idea, but also includes the expansion of marketing channels, the construction of sales terminals, in-place services and scientific research. Price policy and other connotations. Comparing Wahaha and Yangshengtang before and after the "Water War", it is not difficult for us to find the key chess pieces that determine success or failure. ——Scale and layout.The first shot of Yangshengtang's "water war" was at the press conference when its Chun'an new water plant was basically completed.The water plant invested 350 million yuan, known as the largest in Asia. In April 2000, the "purified water is useless theory" was launched. After several months of debate and hype, the concept of natural water was generally established, and the water plant was officially put into operation in July of that year.It can be described as a clever calculation, seamless.Yangshengtang obviously believes that the newly built water plant, together with the adjacent old water plant in Jiande City with an investment of 300 million yuan, already has the scale to compete with Wahaha.In contrast, Wahaha owns 15 drinking water bottling plants, and the number of production lines is still far higher than that of Yangshengtang.More importantly, Wahaha's filling branch factories are evenly distributed in various logistics hubs across the country, and the transportation radius is reasonable, which facilitates the rapid release of products on the market at the lowest cost.However, the two major water plants of Yangshengtang are located around Qiandao Lake, and their intensive advertisements have always emphasized the so-called running water from the source of Qiandao Lake, which limits the expansion of its own layout.All of this determines that Yangshengtang does not yet have the capital to launch a nationwide war.Throughout the history of Wahaha’s development, from fruit milk, purified water, Coca-Cola to the latest tea drinks, it often adopts a late-moving follow-up strategy.Lao Zong is not impulsive and showy, does not show off his mountains and dews, and operates the layout prudently, but once he exerts his strength, he is determined to win.

- Sales channel.This is the biggest advantage of Wahaha, but also the weakest aspect of Yangshengtang. When the "Water War" started, Yangshengtang established a marketing system in 26 regions across the country, with 700-800 sales staff.But the fatal point is that the relationship between Yangshengtang and distributors is so close that it is impossible to form a strong marketing team.One of the reasons is that Nongfu Spring only has 6 products, and the too thin product series cannot form a large enough profit margin, and it is difficult to fully support dealers, resulting in a decline in dealer loyalty.Wahaha has dozens of product categories, and after long-term cooperation, thousands of dealers and the parent company have built a joint sales organization with reasonable profit distribution and extremely close relationships.As long as there is an order, the entire huge marketing machine can immediately start running at high speed, and Wahaha's products are like mercury pouring into the ground, pervasive.In contrast, even if the so-called natural water of Nongfu Spring was generally recognized by the society due to the "water war" back then, is Yangshengtang able to quickly deliver a large number of products to various distribution markets so that consumers can smoothly complete their purchases? Still a question mark.

- Price leverage.Since the launch of Nongfu Spring, the price of a single bottle has been higher than that of pure water including Wahaha.Some people in the industry believe that if Yangshengtang seizes the opportunity to lower the price in a timely and appropriate manner after the "water war" starts, the impact on the purified water manufacturers cannot be underestimated.However, Yangshengtang did not do that.The reason seems to be based on such a judgment: pure water will soon be defeated, and natural water will become the new favorite. Natural water is "high quality and high price".But contrary to expectations, natural water did not appear to be enthusiastically sought after.In desperation, in March 2001, the price of Nongfu Spring had to "diving" from a high platform, and the price reduction reached double digits.Although the sales volume began to rise in a straight line, it was not well-received, and the profit situation did not improve significantly, and the cost pressure on transportation and sales suddenly intensified.Ding Ding also revealed some internal information in "The Marketing Dilemma of Nongfu Spring": "For a box of 24 bottles of 550ml Nongfu Spring with a normal cap, the production cost of the bottle body and cap is about 0.5 yuan, and the production cost of a box of water is 12 yuan. In 2001, Nongfu Spring’s advertising, promotion, marketing network expenses and personnel wages added up to nearly 100 million yuan, which was diluted to 4 yuan per box of water. Adding the average transportation cost of 3 yuan per box of water, the total cost was 19 yuan. Based on the promotional price at the end of 2001, the wholesale price of the same box of water is only 19.6 yuan. Subtracting the two items, the book profit of a box of water is only a few cents." No wonder Liu Ke, Sales Director of Yangshengtang Water Industry, used the word "meager" to describe the company's hard work for a year.We seem to be able to think that Yangshengtang lost a good opportunity to use price leverage due to a misjudgment; and when we realize this, it will be yesterday. In 1960, J. McCarthy, a professor at the University of Michigan in the United States, put forward the "4P" theory of marketing, which has influenced several generations of marketing and marketing practice in the world.Professor McCarthy elaborated that modern marketing should be a complete system of product (Product), price (Price), channel (Place), promotion (Promotion) combination of multiple elements, none of which can be dispensed with.If you are only keen to rely on "ideas" to promote sales, and focus on the system integration of these elements, you will lose sight of the other, and there will be no successful marketing.A great marketing plan is like a necklace. It may look like a golden necklace, but if you indulge in it too much, it may become a rope around your neck. Interestingly, the "water war" provoked by Yangshengtang gave Wahaha an unexpected gift. At that time, there were as many as a thousand drinking water companies in China that mainly focused on purified water. Although Wahaha stood out from the crowd and was far ahead, countless manufacturers stood on top of each other and the market was scattered.Facing the industrial danger brought by Yangshengtang, many small and medium-sized enterprises with weak strength but with common interests are eagerly looking forward to Wahaha's coming out to turn the tide.In the beginning, Zong Qinghou ignored the turmoil and looked at the disputes with a cold eye.When the time was right, Lao Zong raised his arms and posted hero posts all over the place, gathering heroes from all walks of life.Without firing a single shot, hegemony is certain. When the "Water War" was in full swing, the president of Yangshengtang Zhong once said that within a year or two at most, the final outcome of the war will be seen, and pure water is destined to withdraw from the water market sadly.Two years have passed, and the pure water industry is still enjoying a bright future. In 2001, Wahaha's annual output of purified water climbed all the way to 1.4 million tons, accounting for half of the total output of China's top ten beverage companies. Wahaha Pure Water: Loving you is equal to loving yourself