Will Wang Laoji embark on the road of extinction similar to Jianlibao?
Whose Wang Laoji?
Jiaduobao has completely played down the factors of Wang Laoji, and the whole company has made every effort to create "Jiaduobao Herbal Tea" and started brand activities to sponsor the London Olympic Games.
Tian Wei, the head of the public relations department of Jiaduobao, prefers to talk to reporters about his future plans, but he is unwilling to recall the glory that Wang Laoji once created, although Jiaduobao turned Wang Laoji from a low-key trademark into the first brand of herbal tea with sales exceeding that of canned Coca-Cola. This herbal tea brand, which came out in Daoguang period of Qing Dynasty and was nationalized during the public-private partnership, has been unknown for many years. Until 1995, China Hongdao Group, the parent company of Jiaduobao, obtained the exclusive management right of Wang Laoji from Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group at an annual rent of 3 million yuan.
Guangyao chose to rent the Wang Laoji brand at that time because its main business at that time was the pharmaceutical industry, and renting the Wang Laoji brand seemed to be a good deal. Since then, Guangyao and Wang Laoji have renewed their contracts twice, and the rent has been raised to 5 million yuan, and the lease period has been extended to 2020. Until 2003, Wang Laoji only had a relatively fixed consumer group in Guangdong and Zhejiang, with an annual sales volume of 200 million cans.
The year 2004 was the turning point of Jiaduobao, which successfully turned "fire prevention" into Wang Laoji's functional appeal point and accelerated the expansion of catering channels, thus opening up the northern market and going to the whole country in one fell swoop. In 2008, Jiaduobao donated 654.38+billion yuan to Wenchuan earthquake relief, and the sales in that year historically exceeded 654.38+04 billion yuan. By 20 1 1, the sales of Wang Laoji in red cans had reached160 billion yuan, surpassing Coca-Cola and becoming the champion of canned drinks. At this time, although GPHL also launched the green box Wang Laoji, which caught the best-selling ride of Jiaduobao, the annual trademark use fee of 5 million yuan could not meet the needs of GPHL.
In 2005, Li Yimin, former general manager of GPHL, was jailed for taking bribes. Based on this, GPHL thinks that the agreement signed between Li Yimin and Hongdao Group is invalid, and demands to take back the brand of Wang Laoji. 20 1 1, Guangyao sued China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, and in May this year, it took back the brand of Wang Laoji as it wished. Later, the outer packaging design of the red can Wang Laoji released by GPHL was highly similar to that of Jiaduobao, which caused Jiaduobao to fight back. In reply to the reporter's email, Jiaduobao said: "For more than a decade, Jiaduobao has invested a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources in the brand of Wang Laoji, making it a herbal tea brand worth hundreds of billions. We have initiated legal proceedings to file a claim against Guangzhou Pharmaceutical for the brand value of the trademark. "
The reporter found from the patent inquiry system of the national intellectual property website that there are 40 packaging design patents under the name of Chen Hongdao, the founder of Jiaduobao. Among them, the patent application dates of Wang Laoji and Wang Laoji in Red Pot are 1996 and 2002 respectively. However, because the patent application has been over 10 years, the property right status is displayed as "expired". Whether Jiaduobao can prevent Guangzhou Pharmaceutical from using red cans is still unknown.
Battle of channels
Since the court found that Chen Hongdao had paid bribes to Li Yimin, the former general manager of GPHL, Chen Hongdao embarked on the road of escape on 20 1 1. However, Jiaduobao did not fall.
Chen Wei, who has been distributing Jiaduobao herbal tea in Beijing since 2000, told reporters that the sales of Jiaduobao increased by nearly 10% this year compared with last year. Although he received a threatening message in June trying to stop him from selling Jiaduobao, he was still full of confidence in Jiaduobao's business: "I have cooperated with Jiaduobao for more than ten years, and I believe in Jiaduobao's products and their people." He bluntly said that Guangyao also talked to him about cooperation a few years ago, but "the profit of the green box is not high, and the goods are pressed" and it was rejected.
For FMCG, the most important thing is the channel. Wang Lao Ji adopted four marketing channels: catering, conventional, modern and characteristic to open the market: catering channels started with hot pot restaurants and Sichuan restaurants; Conventional channels include distributors and wholesalers. Modern channels include supermarkets, supermarkets and so on. Special channels include nightclubs and bars. Jiaduobao quickly covered terminal stores in different regions and channels, forming a complete sales network.
What Jiaduobao is most praised by the industry is its strong control over channels. Since dealers and wholesalers use rebate mode instead of the traditional price difference mode, once the channel dealers operate out of order, the company can cancel the rebate. Jiaduobao has a sales team of about 8,000 people nationwide. Tian Wei told reporters: "We can post the same poster all over the country overnight, so that all salesmen can say the same sentence to all terminals." The ability to control the sales network means that when Wang Laoji changed his name to Jiaduobao, it was easy to change channels, which also explains why consumers will get Jiaduobao when they buy Wang Laoji.
Jiaduobao, which completely lost the trademark of Wang Laoji, focused on marketing and tried to make consumers accept the brand of "Jiaduobao Herbal Tea". According to the data disclosed by CTR (CCTV Market Research Co., Ltd.), from 20 12 to1~ April, Jiaduobao advertised11740,000 yuan to TV, newspapers, outdoor and other media, with a year-on-year increase of 52.6%, while Guangzhou Pharmaceutical's advertising was only 7 million yuan.
As of press time, Guangyao did not respond to the reporter's interview request. However, industry insiders said that Guangzhou Pharmaceutical has completed its channel layout in Guangdong, and its coverage in shopping malls and supermarkets is comparable to that of Jiaduobao, but the northern market is the short board of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical. In addition, the distributor system of GPHL is only responsible for logistics and capital flow, and there is no business system. GPHL needs to build a high-quality FMCG team to expand its business. For a state-owned enterprise with the pharmaceutical industry as its main business, this is by no means easy.
In addition to channels, Jiaduobao also has menu cards to play. Jianyi Wang, the great-grandson of the fifth generation of Wang Laoji family, once said that Wang Laoji's ancestral herbal tea formula belongs to Jiaduobao. This means that although Jiaduobao lost the right to use the trademark, it still retains Wang's exclusive herbal tea formula. From the ingredients list of Wang Laoji in the red jar and the green box, it is indicated that it is composed of nine ingredients, including water, sugar, grass, chrysanthemum lamp, etc. However, Wang Laoji of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical has a bitter taste, and there is still a difference between the two flavors. Tian Wei said that the formula of herbal tea is only one aspect, and more importantly, the ratio, which is one of the research results of Jiaduobao: "Consumers have accepted the flavor of Jiaduobao herbal tea more, and I am full of confidence in the taste of Jiaduobao herbal tea."
The crane and mussel compete, and the herbal tea under the Dali Garden has become a fisherman's profit. This herbal tea brand, which was established only 20 1 1 year, has eroded the market share of Jiaduobao and Wang Laoji at all costs in marketing and channel promotion in the past two years. For Guangyao and Kadobao, this is their same foreign invasion.
(At the request of the interviewee, Chen Wei is a pseudonym. )