There is the mountain of Red Bull in front of it, and behind it there is War Horse supported by Red Bull, Mozhao supported by Coca-Cola , and Burning Man invested by Li Ka-shing. Surrounded by "tiger and wolf", a company that produces refreshing beverages unexpectedly broke through the encirclement and became China The number one selling energy drink company [1].
This company is Dongpeng Beverage . With a small innovation, Dongpeng Special Beverage has achieved a revenue of 10.3 billion yuan a year with one product, making its leader Lin Muqin the richest man in Shanwei City, ranking Ranked 595th on the 2024 Hurun Global Rich List.
How did Dongpeng Beverage break through? This article briefly analyzes Dongpeng Beverage’s approach to creating explosive products from the two perspectives of making products and selling products, hoping to inspire companies that want to create explosive products.
01. Use four tricks to create a tens of billions-level single product.
Dongpeng Special Drink is a well-deserved big single product. It has good reputation, large sales volume, and can continue to contribute to revenue. When it comes to Dongpeng Special Drinks, there are four ways to create explosive products.
The first trick: choose a big track.
In 1997, Lin Muqin, who worked at the Red Bull OEM factory, switched jobs to the state-owned company Dongpeng Beverage. At that time, there was a huge gap between Dongpeng Beverage and Red Bull. In 1996, Red Bull spent 100 million yuan on CCTV advertising, while Dongpeng Beverage could only make a living by making refreshing drinks.
At this time, comparing the refreshing beverage track with the functional drink track, it is clear at a glance which one is higher and which one is lower. Therefore, Lin Muqin decided to make functional drinks. In 1998, Dongpeng Beverage launched the first functional drink Dongpeng Special Drink. Because it was called a "copycat" Red Bull, it had a poor reputation and naturally had poor sales. After
experienced corporate restructuring, Lin Muqin became the controller of Dongpeng Beverage. During this period, Lin Muqin is "insighting into consumer needs and entering new tracks." In 2009, Red Bull's revenue reached 4 billion yuan and maintained rapid growth.
The rise of Red Bull proves the prospects of functional drinks. Although Red Bull almost monopolizes the market, mid-to-low-end functional drinks are still blank and have great potential.
Therefore, in 2009, Dongpeng Beverage once again entered the functional beverage track and launched Dongpeng Special Drink.
The second trick: identify core users.
In terms of users, Dongpeng Special Drinks has entered a segment of the population - blue-collar workers.
Blue-collar workers are manual workers who need to replenish energy and have a high demand for energy drinks. Compared with lower-class workers, blue-collar workers have higher incomes and have certain spending power. The retail price of a single can of
Red Bull is 6 yuan. It is a mid-to-high-end product and is difficult for ordinary people to consume frequently. Dongpeng Special Drinks positions its core users as blue-collar workers, which can differentiate it from Red Bull users and lead to misaligned competition.
The third trick: dig into users’ pain points.
There are two significant groups of blue-collar workers, namely manual workers and long-time workers. The former are workers and the latter are drivers.
The pain points of these two groups are also very clear. Workers consume a lot of physical energy, and drivers concentrate on driving for a long time. They lack sleep and consume a lot of energy. Replenishing physical strength and refreshing the mind are basic needs.
For blue-collar workers, their income is relatively limited. When meeting basic needs, they must also be cost-effective. They are more price-sensitive.
Also, how to prevent dust when the drink cannot be finished in one go, and how to prevent liquid splashing while the vehicle is moving. These are also pain points for core users of Dongpeng Special Drink.
The fourth trick: Make differentiated products.
In terms of the raw materials of the drinks, Dongpeng Special Drink is almost the same as Red Bull, but the proportion of some ingredients is different.
In terms of outer packaging, Red Bull uses metal cans, while Dongpeng Special Drink uses PET plastic bottles. Compared with cans, the cost of plastic bottles is several orders of magnitude cheaper. In terms of capacity, the retail price of 250ml of Red Bull cans is 6 yuan, the retail price of 250ml of Dongpeng special drink is 3.5 yuan, and the retail price of 500ml later launched is 5 yuan. They are large in quantity and low in price, and are very cost-effective.
Plastic bottles are cheap and at the same time, when you can't finish drinking, screw on the lid to prevent dust and liquid splashing, making it very user-friendly.
On the packaging, Dongpeng Special Drinks also has an iconic design - the dust cover. According to Lin Muqin: "The sales environment for many drinks at that time was not ideal, the mouth of the can was easily contaminated, and people habitually used paper towels. Wipe it before drinking. From a more hygienic perspective, we decided to add a dust cover. "The basic function of this dust cover is to prevent dust. Later, users developed more uses, such as ashtrays and small wine glasses. , small items storage box, etc.
Dongpeng Special Drink’s innovation is very small, but the effect is very good and it is deeply loved by core users. For enterprises, innovation is not about what is new, but about how to meet user needs and solve user pain points.
02, low price profit, single promotion of 1 billion bottles
Dongpeng Special Drink has become a tens of billions-level single product. In addition to the product, marketing also plays an important role. In one sentence, it can be summed up as: simple, crude and repetitive "brainwashing".
Build brand recognition: a super symbol + a classic advertising slogan
"Drink Red Bull when you are thirsty, drink Red Bull when you are sleepy and tired." This is the third version of the advertising slogan launched by Red Bull. It was later abandoned, which made Lin Muqin very Happy, he believes: tiredness and sleepiness are people’s living conditions, a very colloquial expression, and a very good advertising slogan that can best intuitively convey the value of the functional drink category. Therefore, Dongpeng Special Drink launched the advertising slogan "Drink Dongpeng Special Drink when you are tired and sleepy".
At that time, in addition to this slogan, Dongpeng Special Drinks also had a slogan: "When you are young, you have to be awake and work hard." The two slogans were used interchangeably. Later, Dongpeng Beverage found that "when you are tired and sleepy" is more intuitive and more vital, so it persisted in "drinking Dongpeng special drink when you are tired and sleepy" until now, and focused all resources and kept repeating this sentence.
Lin Muqin said: In all media forms, you must persist in focusing on investment. In one sentence, you must persist. Only advertising that persists for more than 10 years will truly belong to you.
In addition to the advertising slogan, Dongpeng Beverage also designed a super symbol - Peng. After the birth of this symbol, every product will carry the "Peng" symbol, forming brand recognition.
A super symbol + a classic advertising slogan, Dongpeng Beverage has established brand recognition.
Online communication: saturation strategy, consolidating awareness
Once brand recognition is established, it needs to be continuously consolidated.
Dongpeng Special Drink adopts the strategy of inviting celebrity endorsements + sponsoring variety shows/film and television program placement + sponsoring large-scale sports events + co-creating with users.
In 2013, Dongpeng Specialty Beverage invited Nicholas Tse as its spokesperson. Subsequently, they invested heavily in spokespersons. Only when Dongpeng Beverage was launched in 2021, 16 celebrities were invited at once, and they took turns to saturate the screen on Focus Media .
Dongpeng Special Drinks sponsored popular variety shows at the time such as "Happy Comedian" and "Tian Tian Shang Shang", and placed advertisements in popular film and television dramas such as "Love Apartment" and "Dear, Beloved".
Popular sports events such as the World Cup, Chinese Super League, and Snooker World Open, as well as popular sports teams such as the Portuguese national team and the rng e-sports team, have also become sponsors of Dongpeng Beverage.
Dongpeng Beverage has also seized the dividends of the short video platform and cooperated with platforms such as Douyin and Bilibili to launch co-creation competitions to allow users to participate in brand communication.
Dongpeng Beverage uses a variety of communication channels and forms to continuously consolidate brand recognition and strengthen the position of Dongpeng Special Drinks in the hearts of consumers.
Offline sales: Lucky draw, single event promotion 1 billion bottles of
While doing crazy brand promotion online, it is also non-stop conquering cities and territories offline.
The official website of Dongpeng Beverage shows that the current number of its dealers has reached 2,981, covering 33 provincial-level administrative regions and 333 prefecture-level administrative regions across the country. The coverage rate in prefecture-level cities has reached 100%. There are more than 3.4 million active terminal outlets nationwide, which is more than Nongfu Spring has nearly 1 million more terminal sales outlets.
In offline promotions, Dongpeng Special Drinks adopts the simplest, crudest and most effective method - opening the lid to win prizes. There are incomplete statistics. So far, Dongpeng Special Drinks has held bottle cap lottery, one yuan enjoyment, bottle cap lottery and so on. Activities such as scanning QR codes to win red envelopes, and only bottle cap lottery activities. According to statistics at the time, more than 60 million consumers participated in the activity of opening the caps to redeem prizes, and the cumulative redemption exceeded 1 billion times.
Dongpeng Special Drink’s prize-opening prizes feature a high prize rate, which can be absorbed by both rain and dew. Some netizens said that in the “One Yuan Enjoyment” event, they won 10 bottles in a row and spent 15 yuan to buy 11 bottles. The ongoing activity of scanning QR codes on bottle caps to win red envelopes has even launched the slogan of “100% winning WeChat red envelopes”.
Through this simple and easy-to-understand promotion, which does not require reading the rules, it has greatly improved consumer participation. At the same time, through profit sharing, commodity prices are reduced in disguise and sales volume is greatly increased.
Conclusion:
In an environment where there are wolves before and tigers behind, Dongpeng Special Drink not only stands out, but also sings all the way. In 2023, Dongpeng Special Drink will rank first in sales and second in sales among energy drinks in China. In the first quarter of this year, Dongpeng Beverage's revenue increased by 39.8% year-on-year, and its net profit increased by 33.51% year-on-year, 90% of which was contributed by Dongpeng Special Beverage.
Looking at Dongpeng Special Drink’s hot selling methods, it is simple, crude, direct and effective. Solve users' pain points and make a good product; spend 10 years repeating an advertising slogan to establish a clear banner in the hearts of consumers; and finally use the simplest method to conduct offline promotions. The real challenge for
to create explosive products does not lie in the lack of methods or unclear paths, but in the decisive decision-making of the company's top management and the resolute execution of the grassroots team - only by being fully committed can we hone our true knowledge in actual combat and continue to optimize and iterate.
The unity of determination and action is the key to crossing the gap from theory to practice.
Reference:
[1] Dongpeng Beverage (Group) Co., Ltd. 2023 Annual Report
[2] Dongpeng Beverage (Group) Co., Ltd. 2024 First Quarter Report
[3] City boundary: Guangdong Fuhao Sell Beverages, the net worth has increased by 7 billion in half a year
[4] International Online: Domestic products are booming. Looking at the development of local functional beverage brands from Dongpeng Special Drinks
[5] Watching the trend of new consumption: Dongpeng, who is "awake and fighting", doesn't understand Young man lying down
[6] Focus Media: Lin Muqin, Chairman of Dongpeng Beverage Group: Pengqi Oriental China Energy
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