Looking back on 2021, new consumption and new business formats emerge one after another under the empowerment of new technologies. Under the general trend of consumption upgrading, the rise of “national tide” not only activates Chinese traditional culture, but also provides an opportunity for the “rejuvenation” of time-honored enterprises rooted in traditional culture.
Zhang Xiaoquan Inc(301055) listing, Beijing Tongrentang Co.Ltd(600085) selling traditional Chinese medicine coffee and bee flowers “crying for poverty”… Looking at the passing 2021, many Chinese time-honored enterprises “catch up with the tide” at the tuyere. With the empowerment of digitization and e-commerce, time-honored enterprises in Zhejiang have also combined tradition and modernity through consumption insight and new product innovation, accumulating a new driving force for consumption upgrading.
time honored brand “catch up with the tide” new national tide
“I feel that many time-honored brands that have never been known before have ‘poured’ out for a time.” Tiktok, a time-honored consumer of “90 generation”, has been familiar with many old brand names in the past year. He also wants to stop and understand the brand’s “past story”. “It is inexplicable to think of the same thing that people used to be hundreds of years ago.”
Data show that time-honored tiktok business platform has been established in over 200 Chinese brands. During the “double 11” period in 2021, the sales of time-honored brands such as Mayinglong Pharmaceutical Group Co.Ltd(600993) , Foshan Haitian Flavouring And Food Company Ltd(603288) and Zhangyu increased in multiple, with a month on month increase of 656%, 452% and 121%.
The time-honored brand time-honored business person introduces that the old brand enterprises tiktok up new products in quality, service, design and aesthetic by satisfying the new consumption demand of fashionable and personalized consumer groups, reinventing brand vitality and stepping out of a road leading by the old brand to “new country tide”, and gaining new market increments.
Zeng Fangrong, Deputy Secretary General of Zhejiang Association of time-honored enterprises, said that more and more time-honored enterprises have participated in the “new national tide” and become part of it. Some innovative measures of time-honored enterprises have even led the “new national tide”.
In 2018, in order to promote the “Double Ninth Festival cake”, the time-honored Chinese brand wufangzhai re edited the documentary of wufangzhai in 1989. The “nostalgia” soon made the video broadcast reach tens of millions. Having tasted the sweetness, wufangzhai launches magic, secondary two, cute or “unknown” advertisements every year, because of “strange” and “cute contrast”, so as to “break the circle” among young groups.
“Wufangzhai’s innovation is based on the in-depth excavation of traditional culture and the in-depth understanding of the company’s strategy.” Xu Wei, deputy general manager of Zhejiang Wufangzhai Industrial Co., Ltd., said that only by adhering to the core point of “Chinese traditional food culture”, wufangzhai can continue to innovate and output, “from ‘online Red’ to ‘Changhong’, I think the key lies in the company culture and strategic planning”.
the dilemma of “out of the circle” of time-honored enterprises
The dilemma of “success in the new and failure in the new”, the balance between “inheritance” and “innovation”, and the dilemma of “hot and cold” are both opportunities and challenges for time-honored enterprises.
“The national tide is just a ‘consumption wave’ that gives time-honored enterprises opportunities.” According to Xia Qianliang, managing director of Zhang Xiaoquan Inc(301055) , under the trend of national tide, consumers are willing to try time-honored products. This is an opportunity for time-honored enterprises, but the product itself is the basis for consumers to stay and realize re purchase and word-of-mouth communication.
Perhaps the time-honored marketing cases of “catching up with the tide” and “overturning” are not uncommon. The big white rabbit selling milk tea with memory card and feeling card was criticized by netizens that “the big white rabbit milk tea has no taste of big white rabbit”; Beijing Tongrentang Co.Ltd(600085) ‘s traditional Chinese medicine caffeine “talking about efficacy regardless of dose” has also been questioned as a gimmick
When the “opportunity” out of the circle is in front of us, how to judge also needs rational judgment.
Zeng Fangrong said that if the opportunity of “going out of the circle” is not “compatible” with the connotation of time-honored brands, it is easy to “heat quickly and cold quickly”. Therefore, time-honored enterprises should weigh their own strategy, strength, input-output and other factors. “It is more important to have an Evergreen Foundation than being concerned at one stage”.
In Xu Wei’s view, out of the circle must be the result of accumulation. If time-honored brands want to “out of the circle”, they must first make a strategic plan for at least three years and systematically allocate people and resources in order to create and seize opportunities.
“Time honored brands do not necessarily need subversive innovation. While retaining the traditional memory, unique taste and spiritual outlook of time honored brands, they can innovate connection methods to reach more young people.” Xu Wei said that if you want to know who the target group is and what you want, you should “communicate” with the appropriate communication methods of the target group, rather than blind innovation.
how can time-honored enterprises “not leave the circle”?
Behind the “revival” of time-honored enterprises, consumers’ emotion and trust in traditional domestic brands are contained. In the re examination and comparison by the market, how can time-honored enterprises not be eliminated “out of the circle”?
“When time-honored enterprises carry out secondary creation of traditional culture in a modern aesthetic way, the inheritance of ingenuity contained in the works attracts me to ‘chop my hands’ madly.” In the shopping list of “post-90s” consumer Wang Wei, old domestic products have gradually occupied a higher proportion.
In Wang Wei’s view, consumers naturally have a good impression of time-honored brands, but there was a “generation gap” in the past. When time-honored enterprises get rid of the historical “shackles” and approach consumers in a way closer to the present to meet consumer needs, consumers are willing to pay, “the current national tide is surging, which does not correctly express our enthusiasm and expectation for domestic products.”
Zhang Xiaoquan Inc(301055) , who is almost 400, has built the image of IP, tiktok, who not only “brushes” micro-blog, “beat”, but also writes “little red book”, extending to the social media matrix channel with multi-dimensional tentacles. These new styles of play also endow Zhang Xiaoquan Inc(301055) with new vitality. In September 2021, “the first share of knife and scissors” Zhang Xiaoquan Inc(301055) was listed on the gem.
“The reason why a time-honored brand has become a time-honored brand is because of its own ‘good’, not ‘old’.” Xia Qianliang said that in the transformation process of Zhang Xiaoquan Inc(301055) , he will constantly refine what was “good” and then “code and translate” it in today’s language. “If we publicize that ‘a pair of scissors can be used for 20 years’, consumers certainly don’t feel it, but if we use’ fine steel ‘and’ enabling a better life ‘, consumers will imagine more.”
Before an innovation and marketing plan is implemented, Xu Wei believes that time-honored enterprises must think clearly about what this marketing or product can bring to the enterprise, whether it is consistent with the company’s strategy, whether it is a long-term effective innovation for the enterprise, “don’t forget your original intention and continue to innovate”.
The relevant person in charge of weipaitang believes that the rise of live e-commerce reshapes and upgrades the trading mode and trading scene of the e-commerce market. Under the new channel, time-honored enterprises can communicate the cultural story behind the brand with consumers, “A large number of time-honored enterprises and intangible cultural heritage manual inheritors touch the Internet and use new channels to realize ‘brand IP, business characteristics, artistic life and cross-border cooperation’, so as to open up a new world.”
When the integration of time-honored brands and Guochao has become one of the new highlights of Zhejiang’s economy, Zeng Fangrong said that time-honored enterprises should always regard consumer demand as the “top priority”, “Only in this way, no matter what the general trend is and at what stage of ‘new consumption’, time-honored enterprises can move with the times, follow the trend, constantly innovate, always integrate into the trend and become ‘trendsetters’.”
When the wind of “national tide” blows, time-honored enterprises stick to the brand, change and innovate, and write a new centennial legend. (end)
(China News Network)
