Beijing, June 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As Chinese brands move towards high-quality development, more and more Chinese companies are aware of the importance of "brands". However, a brand does not refer to a trademark alone, but a system that includes such corporate culture, values and ecological resources. It is not just a few years for a brand to achieve a "long-term popularity" from nothing to something, from something to something, and even achieve a "long-term popularity".
Take the Chinese beverage industry as an example. Among the beverage brands that dominated the market at the end of the last century, after nearly 30 years of great waves, it is rare to stand firm, and it is even rarer to achieve success. During this period, although there are objective factors such as the erosion of the wave of the times, subjective factors such as the unclear strategy of the brand itself, the lack of fine operation, and the lack of firm original intention are also the main reasons that affect a brand's life and death.
2022 China Brand Day is approaching. How can Chinese brands achieve long-term popularity across the economic cycle? Red Bull vitamin functional beverages (hereinafter referred to as "China Red Bull"), which has been at the forefront of the functional beverage market for 27 years, are a good observation sample. In China Red Bull, you can see the relationship between the brand and the times, and you can also see how a brand builds an industrial chain and consumption ecosystem, and seeks steady progress with a attitude of "piping the way through mountains and building bridges across water".
01 The tide of the times, at least watch 50 years development
"There is no successful enterprise, only the enterprise of the times." This sentence is regarded as a famous saying by many entrepreneurs. However, it is often not that easy to judge the direction of the tide of the times.
In the 1970s, Thai businessman Xu Shubiao invented "Krating Daeng" (Thailand Red Bull). In 1993, Xu Shubiao built a factory in Hainan, but was unable to produce the beverage because he could not obtain a production license. The Red Bull Chinese trademark was unable to register for a long time, and the losses were heavy. Later, he met Yan Bin, the founder of Huabin Group, and the two decided to cooperate. Yan Bin visited several days and in-depth negotiations, and successfully cooperated with China-Thailand enterprises, which led to the "China Red Bull".
On December 25, 1995, China Red Bull was officially founded. For the arrival of this day, Red Bull's actual trader in China, Huabin Group and its chairman Yan Bin have done a lot of work.
First of all, the founding shareholders of China Red Bull include two state-owned enterprises. The joint venture was established after approval by the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Light Industry, the Industrial and Commercial Department and other competent departments at that time.
Secondly, China Red Bull, together with several competent departments and relevant experts at the time, held a technical demonstration meeting, and finally adjusted the content of nutritional and additives such as taurine, caffeine, niacin, vitamins and other nutrients in Red Bull beverages to the allowable amount of relevant Chinese standards. Red Bull China has become the first functional beverage in China to obtain health food approval documents.
Finally, the joint venture parties also signed a 50-year "Agreement" before establishing the joint venture's "Joint Venture Contract" and "Articles". This is certainly to lock in long-term cooperation among all parties and protect the interests of all parties, but this ultra-long-term cooperation agreement also shows that all parties in cooperation reached an agreement on this matter at that time: China Red Bull will have to do it for at least fifty years.
Whether a brand can succeed is affected by many factors. The "start" is particularly important. Whether it can take the first step well is not only capital investment, product formula, and market opportunities, but also has a lot to do with the entrepreneur's goals, pattern, and determination. Among them, it is important to avoid market speculation and persist in long-termism in continuing operations. It can be said that the seeds of success in China's Red Bull's 27 years of glory and success were planted from the beginning.
02 Found Consumer The most real demand
At the end of 1997, a new beverage began to be popular in major office buildings such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Beijing. It has a unique gold can packaging, with the front of it with the "bullfighting" pattern, "RedBull", "Red Bull" and other elements printed with the striking blue ribbon at the bottom, and the product name is marked with the blue "health food" logo on the side. This is the brand new Chinese Red Bull product that is different from other countries.
The unique fragrance and sour taste of China Red Bull attracted Chinese consumers who dared to taste new things. First, they occupied the minds of the earliest professional drivers and white-collar workers in China. There is only one reason, "I will not be sleepy after drinking Red Bull."
This statement came from taxi drivers in Shenzhen at the beginning.At that time, Shenzhen, the closest to Hong Kong, was extremely busy with business activities, and taxi drivers had many job opportunities and hard work. China Red Bull promoted Red Bull to taxi drivers in a targeted manner. The adjusted Chinese Red Bull formula retains the product design concept of synergistic effects of amino acids, caffeine and B vitamins, while making Red Bull a liquid vitamin beverage with health benefits. Yan Bin creatively named it "Red Bull Vitamin Functional Drink", rather than following the literal translation of European and American Red Bull Energy Drink, which not only allows consumers to understand the ingredients and effects of beverages, but also distinguishes them from most beverage products. It not only creates a brand new category, but also labels "energy".
Chinese Red Bull keenly captures the driving group's demand for Red Bull and thus creates a new track. This is an unexpected surprise. Previously, China Red Bull spent a lot of money to advertise. Although the effect of feedback on the sales end was limited at the beginning, due to the pace of brand development and China's economic development, with the rapid development of the Chinese automobile market, the effectiveness of the brand forward-looking investment strategy of advertising will naturally gradually emerge.
In order to implement this strategy, Yan Bin also concentrated more than 30 management teams across the country in a hotel in the suburbs of Beijing to brainstorm. The only main task for a few days is to create a catchy slogan for Red Bull products. Finally, "drinking Red Bull when you are thirsty, and drinking Red Bull when you are sleepy and tired" has become the unanimous choice for everyone. From then on, China's Red Bull began to appear in many scenes of people's life, study and work: driving to drink Red Bull, staying up late to drink Red Bull, drinking Red Bull in exams...
03 Build Set up the brand to protect the brand, and make the details excellent
Red Bull's success is not accidental. Products such as pianos, brands such as sounds, and operations as fingers. The three are closely combined, and persistence and courageous in the tide of development of the times have created a commercial success that cannot be replicated by China Red Bull.
The secret of the Chinese Red Bull being popular is here, and the secret of long-lasting is also here. In terms of the
trademark, in order to maintain a consistent tone in the global market, Yan Bin arranged for the person to coordinate and communicate with the owner of the "Bulfighting" pattern trademark registration to buy out part of the ownership of the trademark, and Red Bull's unique trademark was formed. In terms of packaging, in order to achieve a unique appearance packaging that fits localized, China Red Bull follows the aesthetics of Chinese consumers and has developed it many times with partners such as packaging suppliers, tested it 41 times and tested it hundreds of thousands of times. Finally, it adopted a golden can with a more textured and conformed to the aesthetics of the Chinese people, and applied for an appearance patent. This has been used for more than 20 years. In terms of operation, in order to cultivate the consumer market, Yan Bin put forward the slogan "There is no blind spot in the market, and every store must be entered". Even if there are only two cans of Red Bull, it must be placed on the most obvious position in the shelf. He personally led everyone to set up street stalls to promote Red Bull, and in the winter, he also gave Red Bull to taxi drivers along Chang'an Street.
's demand for every detail is the only way for every successful brand, and taking heavy blows to those who damage brand rights is also a level that a brand cannot avoid if it wants to grow for a long time. In the early stages of market development, Yan Bin personally drove a road roller to destroy expired products, preventing inferior products from flowing into the market, and damaging the hard-won brand reputation. At the same time, the Chinese Red Bull team and dealer team have invested a lot of energy and funds to cooperate with relevant departments to conduct high-density network investigations on illegal products such as counterfeit, counterfeiting, and smuggling, and have fought a "war" with counterfeit and shoddy products for ten years.
China's functional beverage industry has been integrated into the genes of sports marketing since its infancy, and China Red Bull has carried it forward. In the early stages of market development, China Red Bull sponsored various sports events with Chinese characteristics with large investment and high starting points. In 1996, Red Bull held the China-Thailand Football Confrontation; around 2000, the experience of Fujian Red Bull three-man football match was successfully promoted nationwide; on November 25, 2003, Red Bull became the first partner of the NBA in China, and was promoted nationwide through CCTV broadcasts and Red Bull Caravans. Red Bull and the NBA are well-known together.Subsequently, China Red Bull entered the National Folk Competition, Qiantang River Surfing Competition, Street Dance Challenge, Nanshan Ski Open and other events to help the development of domestic mass sports and extreme sports. Through hundreds of thousands of offline channel activities and disseminations a year, the Red Bull brand has gradually become popular.
04 Improve the industry and consumption ecosystem, accumulate brand moat
On December 30, 2021, China Red Bull announced its full-year sales results in 2021, with order amount locked at 21.8 billion yuan and delivery amount of 22.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4%.
27 has accumulated goodwill and integrity, which is the strong moat of China Red Bull. The relationship between dealers, partners and employees is as close as one family, is the strongest fortress of China Red Bull. In the more difficult 1998, Yan Bin mortgaged assets to save China Red Bull, and all employees and partners worked together to push China Red Bull's giant ship to new goals.
On December 5, 2021, China's Red Bull production statistics showed that the cumulative production of Red Bull vitamin functional beverages exceeded 50 billion cans, and these 50 billion cans were entirely from China's Red Bull's partner Origin. At the beginning of its founding, Origin saw the market prospects of the Red Bull product and sought cooperation with China Red Bull many times. Its founder traveled back and forth from Hainan to Shenzhen dozens of times, and had more than 40 packaging tests. Finally, he impressed China Red Bull with his craftsman attitude and indomitable spirit. For 27 years, as long as there is a production base of Red Bull in China, there must be an Origin canning factory.
Speaking of China Red Bull, a dealer who has been working with for more than 20 years said that three principles are generally considered when a brand is represented: good products, good teams and the company's strength behind the products. "To be honest, we were not optimistic about beverages as expensive as Red Bull at that time, but we were optimistic about the Red Bull team and the strength behind this company, so we were willing to take over as an agent. Starting from 3,000 boxes and achieving the current results, China Red Bull has always maintained trust and loyalty in us. We never thought about finding other dealers, unlike some brands who do the "opening a porridge stall in front of a hotel."
. Internally, China Red Bull has many employees who have worked for 10 years or more, and some employees have even spent their entire lives in China Red Bull. It can be said that the Red Bull brand has developed rapidly from nothing to something, from 0 to 1, from 200 million to 20 billion, and was developed by the Chinese Red Bull team led by "Starting Man" Yan Bin, step by step.
Nowadays, in the Chinese beverage area, there are strong foreign brands, new forces born in the Internet era, and traditional brands that are resurrected. But there are very few brands like China Red Bull, which have traveled through multiple economic cycles and lasted for 27 years, and have always been moving forward.
Looking at the development history of China's Red Bull, the crisis has always been with us, but China's Red Bull can always "a mountain that cannot be surpassed and a mountain that cannot be defeated." Ultimately, the brand crisis has also become a part of brand growth.
Conclusion: 27 has embarked on a special path of China's 3
In the development process of China's Red Bull, we can always see the path of "experience problems, solve problems". In the corporate culture of China Red Bull, there is a very important concept that is "breaking the road through mountains and building bridges across water". This sentence comes from the practice of the early brand activity of China Red Bull "Red Bull Tour in Thousand Miles". In the eyes of those who do not understand, this is a manifestation of lack of direction and passive response. However, after a deep understanding of the development history of the Red Bull brand in China, we will understand that this is the down-to-earth and steady state under the persistence of long-termism.
From the beginning of its establishment, China Red Bull has a mission with Chinese characteristics, independent vision and values, a development direction and clear path to adapt to the trend of the Chinese market, and a unique organizational structure with Chinese characteristics, and thus embarked on a unique path of brand creation and development. From this perspective, China Red Bull belongs to Chinese consumers.
