Reporter of the Economic Business: Wang Fan Reporter of the Economic Business Business: Yang Xia, Sun Zhicheng, Gai Yuanyuan
During this year's National Day, the official account of Coconut Tree Group Douyin began to enter the live streaming and sell goods, but the style of the live broadcast room caused a lot of controversy. Online video shows that during the live broadcast of Coconut Tree Group, several women wearing tights were dancing while showing the coconut tree coconut juice in their hands. Some netizens commented that Coconut Tree Group "has been walking at the forefront of the edge", saying that its aesthetic "has not changed for ten years" and "earthy" .
Picture source: Daily Economic News Zhu Xingyun Photo by
High saturation contrasting colors, simple and straightforward advertising slogans, crowded and casual font typesetting are unique marketing styles of Coconut Tree Group, and are nicknamed "puffer moss style". In recent years, Coconut Tree Group's marketing has become increasingly erratic. In 2019, it was questioned about using a pun to play the edge with a tall female image and a slogan "I have been drinking since I was a child", and then in 2021, a recruitment advertisement with "There must be a beautiful and handsome guy chasing me" was fined 400,000 yuan for violating the good social trend. Coconut Tree Group has gradually become synonymous with vulgarity and earthiness in the eyes of consumers.
On one hand, it is the leader in China's coconut milk category and has the highest market share for many years, and on the other hand, the brand image has been overturned. The "red" and "black" of Coconut Tree Group will cause heated discussions in the market every time.
" Daily Economic News " reporter noticed that since traditional coconut drink sales have been mainly based on catering and offline channels for a long time, leading brands monopolize channels and lack motivation and innovation, so the growth rate is slow. Although Coconut Tree Group has dominated the Chinese coconut milk market for many years, the plant milk market has quietly changed in recent years. In this track where rookies continue to emerge and traditional leading channels are at the top, can the 36-year-old Coconut Tree Group keep up with the pace of the times?
Controversial marketing has made a comeback. Is it rustic or vulgar?
official website shows that Coconut Tree Group was formerly the Haikou Cannery Factory built in 1956. From 1981 to 1985, Haikou Cannery has suffered losses for five consecutive years. It was impossible to reverse it if it was replaced by four factory directors. It was only 20,000 yuan short of bankruptcy. The factory was dead, the sound of machines could not be heard, and the salary could not be paid. The more than 1 million medical expenses owed to employees were not paid. People with skills and diplomas were transferred to find another way to survive. The complaints of staying in the factory were everywhere, and people were panic.
At that time, the superiors appointed chief and deputy factory directors many times, and no one dared to come. No one dared to be the one who hired as deputy factory directors. Only Wang Guangxing, who had saved " Coconut Island " and revitalized Haikou Electronics Company, dared to shoulder the heavy burden. He was transferred to the top leader of Haikou Canning Factory, implemented four advanced reforms, saved Haikou Canning Factory, and created and developed the Coconut Tree Group. In 1994, Coconut Tree Group was identified by the State Council as the only pilot enterprise for employee shareholding reform in Hainan Province. Coconut Tree Group has ranked second in the output value and third in Haikou industrial enterprises for eleven consecutive years (2010-2020). It currently has more than 6,000 employees, an annual output value of more than 4 billion yuan, and an annual tax payment of more than 600 million yuan.
Wang Guangxing is the soul of the Coconut Tree Group. There are rumors in the world that he was an artist. The packaging of coconut milk products of the "psoriasis style" of Coconut Tree Group was completed under his command - using black as the background color, jumping red, yellow and blue, and the font layout design is horizontal and vertical, and even a straightforward advertising slogan is added on the left and right. However, the rumors that Wang Guangxing personally designed the product packaging have not been officially confirmed. Although
was criticized for its aesthetic taste, its unique packaging design has indeed formed the differentiated characteristics between Coconut Tree Group and other beverages, leaving a deep impression in the hearts of consumers and vividly interpreting "the ultimate is the trend." For decades, coconut tree brand coconut milk has become popular all over the country, and Coconut Tree Group has firmly been in the position of the leader in China's coconut milk.
However, in recent years, the public's evaluation of Coconut Tree Group has gradually changed from "earthy flavor" to "vulgar" and "playing the edge". In February 2019, Coconut Tree Group was questioned for using a pun to promote breast enhancement function because the new packaging was marked with the slogan "I drank since I was a child" and accompanied by a female picture. Coconut Tree Group was subsequently investigated by Hainan's industrial and commercial department, causing controversy on public opinion.
Two years later, in March 2021, Coconut Tree Group posted a recruitment advertisement on its official Weibo account, "Coconut Tree Group's training of the chief and deputy general manager school will recruit students again!!! As long as you know writing, you will have a car, a house, a high salary, and there will definitely be beautiful and handsome guys chasing you." A month later, Hainan Coconut Milk Beverage Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Coconut Tree Group, was fined 400,000 yuan by the Hainan Provincial Market Supervision Administration for publishing advertisements that violated the good social trends.
Recently, the controversial marketing of Coconut Tree Group has made a comeback. "Daily Economic News" reporters found that the Douyin platform showed that during the National Day holiday, the official Douyin account of Coconut Tree Group started multiple live broadcasts, and the live content and Douyin trailer video were mainly about women dancing in tights. While dancing, the female anchor is also promoting the coconut tree product in her hands.
Coconut Tree Group official Douyin account. Image source: Douyin screenshot
In the comment area, some netizens commented, "Everything will change, the aesthetics of coconut trees will not change", "I have been touching the edge, I have been fined, I have been warned, I have never changed." For a time, "Coconut Tree Group's live streaming style of sales has caused controversy" also became a hot search on Weibo.
However, no investigation has been concluded on whether the live broadcast content is suspected of playing the edge. On the afternoon of October 9, the reporter called the official contact number of Coconut Tree Group to try to seek the company's response to the live broadcast dispute. Under the guidance of relevant staff, the Coconut Tree Group was responsible for external communication, but the extension number failed to be connected many times.
Douyin data shows that Coconut Tree Group started live broadcasts on October 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8 respectively. The longest live broadcast is 1 hour and 52 minutes on October 4, and the shortest is only 3 minutes .
It is worth mentioning that on October 2, Coconut Tree Group's live broadcast was interrupted once; on October 5, Coconut Tree Group's live broadcast was interrupted twice; on October 6 and 7, the company stopped broadcasting; until the evening of October 8, Coconut Tree Group's live broadcast was interrupted again, but it was still interrupted once.
. According to Jimu News, staff from Hainan Provincial Market Supervision Administration said that if there are advertising problems in , they will definitely deal with it seriously.
According to Pengpai News , data provided by Xin Dou, the third-party short video and live broadcast data platform Xin Dou, the cumulative number of viewers of Coconut Tree Group's live broadcast in the past 30 days reached 560,000. From October 2 to 4, the number of viewers was still around 10,000, soared to 230,000 on October 5, and the number of viewers remained at around 220,000 on October 8.
According to China News Service, data analysis service platform Chanma Ma, Coconut Tree Group's average sales reached 2500-5000, and the cumulative live sales reached 7500-10000 . Among them, the sales on October 5 were relatively high, close to 8,000; the total live broadcast of 8 was 12 minutes on 48, with nearly 230,000 viewers, and sales of 500-750. The conversion rate of the sales volume symbolizing the actual number of people watching the live broadcast and the number of orders placed is 0.04%.
Currently, the display window of Coconut Tree Group’s Douyin account has been shown empty, and there are no products for stock. ’s recommended products have been sold for 145 pieces of .
According to data provided by Xindo, before the live broadcast, Coconut Tree Group's fans were about 10,000. As of the evening of October 9, the number of fans of Coconut Tree Group's Douyin account reached 290,000, and the total number of likes was received by Coconut Tree Group was more than 310,000.
Coconut milk, soy milk, almond delicacy , plant milk products are ushering in bottleneck? On October 9, Zhu Danpeng, an analyst at China Food industry, said in an online interview with the Daily Economic News: "Coconut Tree Group is still a marketing model that mainly attracts traffic and attracts attention. For Coconut Tree Group, which has a history of more than 30 years, what it really has to feel is the single product, aging mechanism, insufficient relay of new products and insufficient team innovation. As the original sales channels and consumer groups gradually age, Coconut Tree Group urgently needs to enhance its brand influence among young consumer groups." In the Chinese beverage industry, plant protein beverage , including coconut tree brand coconut milk, can be said to be a long-lasting category, and it clearly shows the characteristics of "one product, one brand" - coconut milk, coconut milk, lulu, walnut lotus, and six walnuts, soy milk, Vivi , and vitamin.
The "2020 China Plant Protein Beverage Industry Research Report" released by COFCO Womai.com shows that the plant protein beverage industry has obvious seasonal cyclicality, mainly due to the influence of traditional domestic festivals, which will promote consumers' consumption demand for beverages. The search index of plant protein beverage related products will peak during the Spring Festival every year. Leading companies mainly seize market share with core single products. Yangyuan Beverage's "Six Walnuts", Chengde Lulu 's almond dew, and coconut milk in coconut tree's share in the market segment has reached 80% or more.
Image source: Daily Economic News Zhu Xingyun Photo
The report also shows that the development of plant protein drinks is obvious in regional terms and is closely related to different eating habits of consumer groups in different regions; at the same time, plant protein drinks are typical raw material-oriented beverages, and plant protein raw material production area factors and logistics and transportation also seriously affect the regional development of plant protein drinks.
Zhu Danpeng said: "After the rapid growth of 2013-2016, plant protein beverages have entered the quiet period of the industry since 2018. The core reason is that product homogeneity is too high, and the lack of innovation has led to consumer aesthetic fatigue."
In addition, in terms of channels, he analyzed that at present, there are only two companies in the plant protein industry, coconut and six walnuts, which are operated nationwide. Others such as Vivi, Lulu, Daliyuan , and Vita milk are all very regional brands, and brands operated by omnichannel have not yet appeared. And at present, all plant protein beverage channels have overlapped. In the north, they rely on holiday and celebration consumption and in the south, they rely on catering channels. As the consumption capacity of these main channels approaches the ceiling, the development of leading enterprises has fallen into a bottleneck period.
Take Coconut Tree Group as an example. The reporter noticed that coconut milk is its best-selling single product. Although the company has tried to launch other categories of products such as mineral water, coconut oil and in recent years, it has less exposure at the terminal, and consumers have a low awareness of coconut tree's non-coconut milk products. Not only that, Coconut Tree's operating income is also facing a peak.
The reporter checked the list of the top 100 enterprises in Hainan Province released by the Hainan Provincial Enterprise Federation and the Hainan Entrepreneurs Association every year and found that Coconut Tree Group ranked on the list all year round. The list shows that from 2013 to 2018, Coconut Tree Group achieved operating income of 4.477 billion yuan, 4.45 billion yuan, 4.336 billion yuan, 4.021 billion yuan, 4.157 billion yuan and 3.916 billion yuan respectively, while in 2021 it was 4.616 billion yuan (the specific amount was not announced in 2019 and 2020). It can be seen that in 2018 and before, Coconut Tree Group's operating income continued to decline to below 4 billion yuan, and rebounded in 2021, but it basically maintained a basic market of around 4.5 billion yuan, which is not much different from the level a few years ago.
Reporter| Wang Fan Editor| Yang Xia Sun Zhicheng Gai Yuanyuan Dubo
Proofreading| He Xiaotao
｜Daily Economic News nbdnews Original article｜
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