Chapter 6 Troubled times and wars: fresh and not falling into the mud

The rise of Jianlibao means the arrival of spring in China's beverage market.It has greatly stimulated people's imagination, and a group of very ambitious entrepreneurs have poured into the field of beverage and food.Large and small beverage factories, food factories, and health care product factories have sprung up in the Pearl River Delta area one after another, and the era of "Pearl River Water" and "Guangdong Grain" and "Northern Expedition" China has begun. At the same time that Li Jingwei was making a fuss about the "Sixth National Games", in Huangjiang Town, Dongguan, Guangdong, Huai Han newly founded the Sun God Health Products Factory. His entrepreneurial legend is almost a replica of Li Jingwei's style.Similar to Li Jingwei's experience, Huai Hanxin also came from the sports system.He worked as a driver in the Guangzhou Municipal Sports Commission, and the magical story of Jianlibao gave him the urge to start a business.His father-in-law worked in the Guangdong Provincial Sports Hospital. At that time, he developed a tonic solution for the Guangdong Provincial Sports Team that mixed extracts of chicken and snake to treat anorexia and insomnia. After trial, the effect was very good.Huai Hanxin took this formula and 50,000 yuan and ran to Huangjiang Town to set up a small factory.

Before the product was successfully mass-produced, Huai Hanxin learned Li Jingwei's original tricks. In January 1988, the National Sports Commission held a selection meeting for the special sports drink nutritional supplements for the Chinese delegation of the 24th Olympic Games in Guangzhou. Huai Hanxin took his "biojian" which had not yet been released to the market to public relations.The results of the selection were announced, and Biohealth Oral Liquid won the Special Sports Supplement for the Chinese Delegation of the 24th Olympic Games and the China Sports Nutrition Gold Award.With such an aura, Huai Hanxin started his journey to conquer the Chinese market.In order to make his enterprise more modern, Huai Hanxin registered the factory name, product name and trademark as "Sun God" after winning the award. He took Jianlibao's can and said to the designer: "This is the best product in China." drink, you design it to look like it.”

At this time, in a street in the east of Hangzhou, Zong Qinghou, who was 6 years younger than Li Jingwei, began to prepare for the establishment of Wahaha Children's Health Products Factory.The founder of China's largest beverage company in the future recalled that when he launched Wahaha Children's Nutrition Liquid, the advertising slogan "drinking Wahaha, eating is delicious", and the inspiration was "stolen" from Jianlibao. A very strange fact is that although both Helios and Wahaha achieved amazing performance in the early 1990s, they never had a direct product competition with Jianlibao.Wahaha, in particular, later withdrew from the mixed health care product market and entered the beverage field, but it did not focus on fruit juice soda drinks, nor did it produce canned products.The reasons are as follows: 1. Its main market is in the second- and third-tier urban markets, and the cost of cans is relatively high, which is not suitable for low-priced, high-volume product types; 2. Jianlibao’s "Oriental Magic Water" The brand effect is too strong, leaving little room for latecomers to step in and compete; 3. Due to factors such as price and drinking habits, the urban market capacity of juice soda and sports drinks cannot achieve a geometric explosion.

These reasons have made Jianlibao unique in the world. In a special era, the brand effect formed by special opportunities is like a mysterious halo, which has always shrouded this orange-yellow drink.In addition, Li Jingwei's product positioning for Jianlibao, which wanders between beverages and health products, is very effective in urban markets where product differentiation is not yet clear. The magic water effect, high price, and no competition. The combined result of these factors is that for more than 10 years, Jianlibao has been one of the beverage varieties with the best sales efficiency and the most stable sales in China. China's beverage distributors have made a lot of money from Jianlibao.This is also the reason why many dealers are still willing to pay out of their own pockets to save it when it collapses in the future.

Jianlibao's competitor is always itself.In its first 10 years of business, there were few signs of crisis. In 1989, Jianlibao's advertising cost was as high as 10 million yuan, which ranked first among China's consumer goods companies that year, and its output value was close to 500 million yuan. In 1991, Li Jingwei whimsically planned a promotional idea of ​​"pull the ring with prizes". Consumers who buy Jianlibao can get a bonus of 50,000 yuan as long as they pull the pull ring with a special pattern printed on it.Li Jingwei claimed to invest millions of yuan in bonuses every year-from 2 million yuan at the beginning, and then increased to 8 million yuan in 1994.The event was an unexpected success in urban and rural China.What is particularly surprising is that the "Jianlibao pull ring" has become a prop for many rural swindlers.They sat on the long-distance bus and suddenly exclaimed that they had pulled a can of Jianlibao with a huge prize of 50,000 yuan, and then resold it to innocent passengers who were greedy for petty gains.This kind of deception game was still being played stupidly and dangerously in urban and rural areas all over the country until around 2000.

Relying on the promotion incentives of the pull rings and the continuous influence of the brand, the sales of Jianlibao have soared and surpassed the dust. In 1994, Jianlibao solemnly celebrated the 10th anniversary of its establishment. Li Jingwei arranged for all the five-star hotel banquet guests in Guangzhou, and planted colorful flags all the way from Guangzhou to Sanshui County, 35 kilometers away.At this time, Jianlibao's annual sales exceeded 1.8 billion yuan, which was unmatched in the country. However, in this festive scene, Jianlibao is undergoing the most difficult ordeal and the most thrilling test since its establishment.

Around 1994, China's food market experienced a violent expansion and shock movement.In the past 4 years, the most ambitious entrepreneurs in all of China have crowded the health care products and beverage market in a blowout period with great excitement.The number of health care product manufacturers in the country has increased from nearly 100 to more than 3,000, an increase of more than 30 times, with as many as 28,000 varieties, and an astonishing annual sales of 30 billion yuan, an increase of 12 times compared to 4 years ago.The health care product industry has become the fastest growing and most eye-catching "golden land" in the country, and its marketing concept and market radiation have had a huge impact on the beverage market.As the No. 1 beverage brand in China, Jianlibao is positioned to walk between health care products and beverages, and the impact can be imagined.In the domestic market, Jianlibao is facing enemies everywhere: in the next three years, Sun God has also achieved a turnover of 1.3 billion yuan and a profit of 300 million yuan. Its avant-garde and cutting-edge brand image has faintly surpassed Jianlibao.In major urban markets, multinational corporations and Sun God and Guangzhou Robust, which have a good brand image, have grabbed a large market share; Jianlibao is struggling in the competition; however, its concept of health care, which has always been self-confident, has been robbed of the limelight by the more daring Shenyang Feilong and Shandong Sanzhu.

Li Jingwei had seriously studied the marketing strategies of Feilong and Sanzhu. If he and Huai Hanxin relied on ingenuity and ingenuity, then the two northern companies relied purely on the powerful "three-axes" to win.The product launched by Shenyang Feilong is Yansheng Hubao Liquid, which is said to have a therapeutic effect on men and women with kidney deficiency.It does not pay attention to marketing skills and brand image like Guangdong enterprises, but blindly uses advertising bombing as the only means. Advertisements are so dense that they have never been seen before.This kind of intensive advertising bombardment without placement skills and artistic effects at all can create a suffocating hot atmosphere, which is actually very effective in the urban market with a heavy sensibility.Jiang Wei, the head of the company, does not build factories, buy assets, or even renovate office buildings, and insists on the marketing cycle strategy of "advertising-market-benefit".Since 1991, Feilong has invested 1.2 million yuan in advertising fees and realized a profit of 4 million yuan; in the second year, it invested 10 million yuan in advertising fees, and its profits soared to 60 million yuan; by 1994, it had invested more than 100 million yuan in advertising fees. More than double that of the company, the profit reached 200 million yuan.

Sanzhu is a more exaggerated enterprise.Based on Mao Zedong's thought of "encircling the cities from the countryside" as a strategic basis, it penetrated into the rural and urban markets strongly.Its founder Wu Bingxin carefully designed a four-level marketing system in the rural market, namely, prefecture-level subsidiaries, county-level offices, township-level publicity stations, and village-level publicists. goods.In order to achieve the purpose of promotion, the marketing staff of Sanzhu did everything possible. They arbitrarily exaggerated the function of the product, and promoted Sanzhu Oral Liquid as a magic medicine that could cure no disease.At the same time, they also boldly and creatively implemented the model of "letting experts speak and patients witnessing".On the one hand, they wantonly fabricated consumer evidence; on the other hand, they pioneered the marketing method of "expert free consultation", and held many so-called "free consultation activities" in various places every year. Strains Oral Liquid".These unbelievable marketing techniques were tried and tested in the Chinese market back then. In 1994, the sales of the three plants that had just started their business exceeded 100 million yuan. In the second year, they rushed to 2 billion yuan, catching up with Jianlibao, which is in full swing. ①

At that time, the market performance achieved by these northern enterprises was so dazzling that it made the successful entrepreneurs in the past few years envious and uneasy. Li Jingwei, the "king of Chinese beverages", was undoubtedly the one who was disturbed the most. one.Under the aggressive advertising campaign of Sanzhu and Feilong, even the always confident Jianlibao people became a little confused, and its marketing personnel began to fabricate the advertising copy of Sanzhu. In the autumn of 1993 when sales were booming, Jianlibao’s marketing department planned an empirical advertisement, which claimed to have received “thank you letters” from consumers, saying that some old people who were bedridden all the year round were “miraculously” cured after drinking Jianlibao.The marketing personnel also sent the drink to the Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital for clinical observation, and concluded that: "After taking Jianlibao, it can improve the internal environment, restore the spirit, eliminate fatigue, improve appetite, and promote electrolyte balance in the body. Digestive power and uterine contraction have obvious benefits." In this way, the "Oriental Magic Water" that won the victory in sports marketing has become a pot of "jianghu potion" that can cure all diseases.

Fortunately, Jianlibao did not go too far on this road, and Li Jingwei quickly discovered the danger of such advertisements.During that time, his marketing managers complained to him repeatedly: "If we don't do this, no dealer will be willing to sell Jianlibao." It’s also very good, and it’s a pity to let Feilong and Sanzhu be the first to grab a lot of money. Now as long as you follow them, you will definitely get a big increase in sales.” However, Li Jingwei finally ordered the suspension of this type of advertising. The fact later is that Jianlibao has not been deeply involved in this seven or eight years of marketing chaos.It did not follow the Sun God in the advertising campaign, and its advertising has always been very restrained, and it has always focused on sports, featuring news and public relations planning with small investment and large effects; it has not followed Feilong and Sanzhu. Arbitrarily exaggerating functions and deceiving consumers, so when the credit of the national health care product market collapsed around 1997, Jianlibao was not greatly affected.It has not even embarked on the road of diversification and expansion. Jianlibao's product line has always been very simple, its cash position is excellent, and its capital operations have always been carried out within its capabilities. In the middle and late 1990s, China's health care products and beverage market was a chaotic industry with no moral bottom line.This place is full of temptations, and the business game of "bad money drives out good money" is popular everywhere. Sticking to order and brand often means being attacked, low-efficiency or even eliminated.However, amidst the chaotic waves, Li Jingwei showed outstanding determination and kindness.In this troubled world, there are only two survivors in the end: one is Zong Qinghou of Wahaha. The other is Li Jingwei who refused the temptation.