How To Make Use Of Crisis Events Correctly In The Second Line Brand

It seems that China's dairy industry is really restless. The melamine incident that has shocked the world has just subsided and a wave of "precocious" and "malicious slander" has been made. The wave has not yet completely subsided, and "leather milk" has emerged again.

This has to make people sigh: speechless.

However, to put it another way, it is difficult to avoid the occurrence of crises in developing countries, even in developed countries. The United States, with the highest degree of legalization, has a "financial crisis". In the most famous Japan, the TOYOTA recall door is also happening. Let alone China?

Here, I do not want to discuss the probability of the occurrence of a crisis. I want to explore how the second-line brands that have not been caught up in the crisis will make good use of the rapid growth of events whenever the crisis breaks out.

When the balance suddenly vibrate

Through years of observation, no matter which industry, when a crisis suddenly erupts, the market will cause strong shocks, and a relatively stable market structure has also been broken.

At this point, the most typical case may be the "melamine" incident of 2008.

When the media widely reported the incident, China's dairy industry was like an earthquake. The sales volume of the ridden brand was plummeted, and the whole market was plunged into a "shock" state. Consumers were watching "where am I going?"

Interestingly, however, the market structure is very much like a "balance", and the other side is bound to pick up, and consumer demand always finds its satisfaction.

In the "melamine" incident, although we obviously see that the brand led by "Sanlu" is declining or even collapsing, other brands that have not been exposed have gone up against the trend and sales have gone up.

The most typical case is the international milk powder brand.

In the "melamine" incident, many international brands have not been exposed, which gives consumers a reason to shift direction and meet their needs. The international milk brands represented by Dumex and Mead Johnson are growing rapidly and become the beneficiaries of the event.

This phenomenon is also evident in local brands.

For example: three yuan and Feida, the two local brands are not exposed because of the melamine incident, but also showing a trend of "uptrend", especially for the once unknown flying crane milk powder, which provides the opportunity to pform from sparrow to Phoenix.

In 2009, the flying crane milk powder successfully broke through the 1 billion yuan mark and became another dark horse in China's milk powder industry.

Therefore, when the market "balance" suddenly vibrate, it will bring disaster to some brands while providing opportunities for some brands. There are always one or two brands that have a good chance to rush from "second line" to "first line".

Sales surge is not equal to brand promotion

In times of crisis, when people seize market opportunities, especially when their brands become the beneficiaries of events and grow rapidly, they often convey a wrong signal to entrepreneurs: the rapid increase in sales volume is their brand promotion.

In fact, the gap between "sales promotion" and "brand promotion" is still one hundred and eight thousand li, which can not be mentioned in the same breath.

Why do we say so? We will take the SARS incident of 2003 to explain this matter.

During the "SARS" period, people's demand for "clearing away heat and detoxifying" increased rapidly, and an ordinary Chinese herbal medicine Banlangen became the object of panic buying.

As a result, all the major drugstores and hospitals in the country sold all the indigotica root which had been deposited for many years, and sent wrong signals to many pharmaceutical factories producing isatis root.

In particular, those pharmaceutical companies that considered themselves good brands were even more enthusiastic. They thought they were so great that they expanded their production lines and produced large quantities of Radix Isatidis and tried to become the first brand of the drug.

How did it happen? After the SARS, sales of Isatis indigotica plummeted, and the market that once was in short supply suddenly disappeared, and those large-scale "recruiting" pharmaceutical companies were in trouble.

This living case tells us ironically that in a crisis, when your sales volume suddenly increases, it is only consumers' irrational choice, which has nothing to do with your brand.

If this phenomenon comes back to the "melamine" incident in 2008, it can also explain the problem.

In the "melamine" incident, three yuan as a beneficiary brand, its sales have indeed been improved.

But with the calming of the incident, we also saw the pain of three yuan. At the same time, we saw that three yuan did not develop into a real strong brand.

Single point breakthrough, optimized combination

So how can the second-line brand that has not been implicated in the crisis break through? How can we develop into a first-line brand recognized by consumers?

The author's answer is actually very simple, that is: single point breakthrough, optimize the combination.

What do you mean? Let's answer them below.

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Single point breakthroughs are a kind of focused thinking.

That is to say, if you want to make use of crisis events to truly develop into a strong brand, you must make breakthroughs in the "maximum value" that consumers agree with and stick to this value.

The most successful case at this point is probably "Baer plus black" cold medicine.

In the 2001 PPA incident, Kang Tai Ke suffered a serious impact and once withdrew from the market.

At this time, "Baja Hei" seized the opportunity. It not only publicized "PPA cold medicine" but also stressed "no sleepiness during the day and sleep at night". Until now, this demand has not changed.

If we say "white plus black" before 2001 will not be able to mention the first-line brand in the market of Chinese cold medicine, today's "white plus black" has become a truly first-rate brand.

Optimization is to optimize your product mix.

Most people will say this concept, but most people will be wrong.

What is the concept of optimal combination? It is subtraction instead of addition.

Many entrepreneurs have expanded their minds and tried to become "big brands" as soon as possible with constant "additions".

But in reality, this kind of thinking is just the opposite.

In the melamine incident, three yuan could have been a dark horse, but unfortunately the horse did not run out of the speed of the rocket.

The reason is that there is a problem with its product mix.

One thing I can't understand is that they enter the milk powder market.

In your product mix, what is the role of milk powder? Three yuan has not been able to answer this question.

So far, the three yuan milk powder with the highest standard of maternal love has not reached the "highest" prize stage. Today's three yuan is still struggling on the edge of "loss" and "no loss".

Control your ambition.

Compared with three yuan, flying crane is relatively better.

Above, we also mention the two brands' benefit 'story.

Why do we say that flying crane is better than three yuan? It is because Feida originally made the "single point breakthrough" better.

They immediately put forward the slogan of "a good milk powder" by using the incident, claiming that they had not had any problems for more than 40 years.

This is obviously destructive to consumers who panic at that time.

Later, it turned out that flying crane was indeed successful that year.

However, behind a short period of success, a more fearful crisis often arises, that is, the ambition of entrepreneurs.

Flying crane faces the "expansion" crisis brought about by this ambition.

If the former flying crane is only making milk powder, then what is flying crane doing today? When you open their website or enter a supermarket to see their products, you will know that its expansion has reached the level of "reckless".

On milk powder, they not only cover the whole age, but also cover all kinds of fields, such as soy milk powder, walnut powder, health care products, cream, butter, industrial powder, liquid milk and so on, and expose their ambition to rush to "100 billion".

Can expansion achieve 100 billion? Do 100 billion succeed? I think these two questions, no matter how you answer, are all questions.

In China, is there a small number of enterprises to ruin their own destiny for "100 billion"? The "Prince milk" just left us last July is a typical case. Why do we always have to think about "100 billion"?

Therefore, the author once again appealed to our entrepreneurs: remember "Taizi milk", forget "100 billion", forget "Haier" to learn "GREE", use your "ambition" to make a longitudinal effort, turn your brand into the first brand of a category, and then plan to expand.

Erie and Mengniu, you can't learn.

In the dairy industry, if you want to become a first-line brand, you must learn from Yili and Mengniu. When you ask such a question in front of everyone, I believe all entrepreneurs will say "no".

However, in fact, countless second-line brands, once they come up, reproduce the models of Erie and Mengniu without exception, and follow the strategy of Erie and Mengniu without exception.

Last year, when I was interviewed by a media about the development strategy of Guangming dairy, I made it clear that it is questionable for light to get involved in normal temperature milk and milk powder, and said that light should change the strategy of "being strong and fresh, breaking through the normal temperature and attacking milk powder" to "focus on fresh milk, break through yogurt and attack cheese".

Later, this proposal received a protest from a bright employee. He wrote to me, explaining to me in plenty of words and modesty and politeness, how accurate the light is in the milk and milk powder at normal temperature.

At that time, I answered his letter, but I was sure that his understanding of the dairy industry and his seemingly rigorous thinking did not positively justify it.

Because it makes no sense.

Then, like the brand of Guangming, three yuan, flying crane, Wei Gang, Chang Fu and so on, can imitate the Erie and Mengniu to copy their models, can they really become the first-line brands? I can tell you very responsibly that it is impossible.

Why? Because you don't have the advantageous resources like them.

Erie and Mengniu, relying on the resource advantage of "milk town" in Inner Mongolia, have built a strong brand, which is the same as "French wine", "German automobile" and "Australian cashmere".

This is why light is reduced from "boss" to "old three".

This has nothing to do with "normal temperature" and "low temperature", and has nothing to do with the quality of personnel.

I have also been to Guangming dairy, three yuan dairy industry, and I know more about flying crane.

I feel that in these enterprises, there are products of normal temperature, and their employees are all extremely smart.

But even so, facts have fully proved that so far no enterprise has developed into the scale of Yili and Mengniu.

Therefore, I sincerely tell us the second line brand, when an industrial crisis erupts, we can seize the opportunity and strive for development.

But the premise is that we must recognize the resources behind our brand and brand, not cover up the problems with the temporary success, and we can not beat the idea of "100 billion" with the temporary success.