Following Anresha and Heart-to-heart relationship, on September 27, RIO Ruiao Cocktail officially announced that it is a popular star Xiao Zhan has become its global brand spokesperson, which is also the third brand endorsement that Xiao Zhan has won since September.
plus the previous Du , L'Oreal , Tsingtao Beer , etc. This year, a total of twelve brands have officially announced the endorsement of Xiao Zhan. If you dial the time forward, this number will be increased to 44.
▶ Source: RIO Ruiao Cocktail Official Micro
The brand endorsed by the brand, whether in terms of quantity or quality, looking at the entire domestic entertainment industry, has achieved such results in six years of debut, and is also among the top among the popular stars.
Of course, many first-tier brands collectively "chasing" Xiao Zhan. In addition to the popularity of the top stars, more importantly, the commercial value and market recognition behind Xiao Zhan, especially the purchasing power of tens of millions of fans behind Xiao Zhan.
When low-alcohol wine is in weakness, can Xiao Zhan's RIO still tell a new story?
01
low-alcohol wine cannot be sold
"Low-alcohol wine cannot be sold!" Some low-alcohol wine entrepreneurs once conveyed such anxiety to investors in public.
In fact, the tide of low-alcohol wine has been revealed as early as this year's 618 promotion. According to Magic Mirror Market Intelligence Data, as of June 14 (including pre-sales), in the Tmall 618 wine category, only one of the low-alcohol brands ranked 12th, with sales of only 9.87 million yuan.
and liquor /fruit wine sales were about 32.51 million yuan, ranking fifth in the entire category of wine, and the top ones are domestic liquor, beer, foreign wine, and wine. If we compare sparkling water, tea drinks, and even yogurt, which belong to the same beverage track, the coldness of low-alcohol wine in the consumer market will become more and more obvious.
So why did the low-alcohol wine category that has been popular in recent years open high and close low in the consumer market this year, and even retreat?
The biggest reason is of course that the use scenarios of low-alcohol wine are very limited.
▶ Source: Kweichow Moutai official microscope
For example, high-end banquets, white wine and red wine have always firmly controlled the table for wedding banquets, business, etc. Low-alcohol wine is an object that is directly ignored. When friends have dinners in offline meals, beer and beverages have been the mainstream choices for a long time. Although low-alcohol wine can be used to find a chance, the numerous choices also make it difficult for them to have a chance to be outstanding.
The main scenario of low-alcohol alcohol consumption is actually the social needs of some young people, but these people are not the mainstream consumer groups for drinking after all.
The remaining scenes, such as family, dormitory, rental house, outdoors, etc., even though there is a great opportunity for low-alcohol alcohol, it is impossible for more ordinary office workers to get slightly drunk day and night.
In addition to the restrictions on consumption scenarios, the OEM production model chosen by a large number of low-alcohol brands also brings problems such as unstable quality, uncontrollableness and more serious homogeneity.
As a major alcohol consumer country, for mainstream consumers, OEM not only means there is no room for premium, but the most important thing is that it also reduces the brand's recognition in the market.
And the complex OEM production will also aggravate the confusion and difficulty of choices for consumers. Based on this, some consumers even joke that young users who accept low-alcohol wines have grown, but they cannot keep up with the speed of the brand’s birth.
The coldness of the consumer market has been transmitted to the capital market, and it has also brought about a cliff-like decline in low-alcohol investment and financing.According to incomplete statistics, in 2021, 37 low-alcohol liquor-related projects (including offline chain taverns and not liquor) have won capital favor, but since 2022, there have been only 8 brands that have received investment.
For capital that does not have profits, this cold attitude undoubtedly further proves the embarrassing situation in the current low-alcohol liquor market.
02
brands all love Xiao Zhan
The pessimism of the capital market is actually no trace. For example, a wine expert once told the media that the visible capacity of low-alcohol wines in the entire country is about 20 billion, which is far from the "100 billion market" expected by capital.
▶ Source: RIO Ruiao Cocktail Official Micro
Such a "small" market, coupled with the relatively low threshold for entry of low-alcohol wines, this further intensifies the fierce competition among brands.
As the leading brand in the low-alcohol wine category, RIO has not had a good life in the past first half of 2022.
According to the 2022 semi-annual report released by Bairun Co., Ltd. (RIO parent company), in the first half of this year, its pre-mixed cocktails (including sparkling water, etc.) achieved operating income of 866 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 17.99%; and achieved net profit of 145 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 45.88%.
faces both decline in revenue and net profit, so in the increasingly severe market environment, RIO needs to find new breakthrough points to reverse the current situation.
Enable new spokespersons for dissemination and awaken the attention of young consumers. This is one of the common strategies used by brand marketing. This time, RIO chose Xiao Zhan as its global brand spokesperson, and a big reason may be based on such considerations.
After all, as a big V with more than 31 million fans on Weibo, Xiao Zhan’s ability to sell goods has been verified by many brands before.
For example, after the drama " Dream of Dreams " officially announced that Xiao Zhan joined the performance, it triggered a social platform. The Weibo index shows that on the day of the information release, the "Xiao Zhan" Weibo index increased by 133.23% month-on-month, while the "Dream of Dreams" index increased by as much as 351,208.33%.
was also crazily bought, and there is also the "heart-to-heart seal" that was officially announced a few days ago. It is reported that after Xinxiangyin officially announced Xiao Zhan as his spokesperson, sales increased by 40 times.
▶ Source: Xinxiangyin official microsoftware
Also According to the data report released by Aiman Data in conjunction with China Advertising Association and Blog Tianxia , two days after Xinxiangyin officially announced Xiao Zhan as the spokesperson, the endorsement contribution heat index reached 95.99, exceeding the average level of similar endorsements in August 73.16, and far exceeding the average level of new endorsements in August 63.06.
Fans are in a high mood for purchasing, and merchants make a lot of money. Naturally, no brand is willing to miss this result. More importantly, after sales increase in the short term, this fanatical sentiment will be transmitted into the consumer market, which can also stimulate the purchase of passers-by consumers in this atmosphere.
So from this perspective, RIO chose Xiao Zhan as its spokesperson, and there may be reasons for short-term stimulation of the market and then driving sales.
03
RIO needs a new start
Since the launch of the "Slightly Drunk" series in 2018, RIO's "Slightly Drunk" story in the consumer market has been told for four years.
At that time, with the slightly drunk advertisement of Zhou Dongyu , RIO's outstanding "one person's wine" scene consumption did leave a deep memory for many young people. Driven by this, RIO's performance has also rebounded significantly since 2019.
Especially in 2020 and 2021, Bairun Co., Ltd.'s operating income also reached 1.927 billion yuan and 2.594 billion yuan respectively, with net profits of 536 million yuan and 666 million yuan.Among them, pre-mixed cocktails achieved outstanding results of 1.712 billion yuan and 2.285 billion yuan in main business revenue, and net profit of 400 million yuan and 470 million yuan.
But it is also because of this that capital has also increased its layout for low-alcohol wine in 2020 and 2021. According to data, since 2020, there have been more than 40 financing incidents for low-alcohol wine, including players with good strength such as Berry Sweetheart, Liqueur White, Horsepower Tonton, JOJO Sparkling Wine.
▶ Source: MissBerry Berry Sweetheart Official Micro
With the entry of many brands, there are more categories to choose from in the consumer market. For example, Nongfu Spring launched the first domestic M wine + bubble bottled beverage new product TOT bubble drink, Huiyuan Juice launched the fruit cocktail "really cool" and so on.
So in the low-alcohol consumption market, RIO Ruio Cocktail, which has been telling the story of "slightly drunk" for several years, will inevitably be affected by a certain impact when facing competition from a group of new players.
In the face of this situation, RIO also launched its first 0 sugar product in June last year. As sugar-free beverages are becoming more and more popular with consumers, RIO's innovation has opened up another market segment, but for those who are actually drinking, this has not attracted much attention.
embarrassment is not only that. Whether for RIO or other players who have entered low-alcohol wine, although low-alcohol wine has existed in the market for many years, consumers' acceptance is not satisfactory.
1 data shows that the per capita annual consumption of pre-mixed in my country was about 0.06 liters in 2018 and about 0.085 liters in 2019, which is about 0.61% and 0.65% of the per capita annual consumption of pre-mixed cocktail markets in Japan and other countries.
More importantly, as a drinking country, white wine has never stopped coveting in the battle for consumption in the mouth of young people. Even when the capital market for low-alcohol liquor is cold, there is still a large amount of financing for liquor this year.
Overall, in the huge domestic alcohol consumption market, low-alcohol wine represented by RIO does not have much say, and liquor is still the mainstream choice in the consumer market.
So although RIO has brought Xiao Zhan to the top star, if there is no new story to tell, if you read it for a long time, the challenges it will face will not be easy.
