Brand marketing strategy analysis case!

Let’s first understand what plant protein drinks are? According to the different processing raw materials, the categories on the market today can be roughly divided into the following five categories: soy milk drinks, coconut milk, almond milk, walnut milk, and protein drinks:

From the perspective of industry scale, China's plant protein beverage industry as a whole is entering a stage of rapid development . According to data released by Tmall New Product Innovation Center, the sales volume growth rate of the plant protein beverage market in 2020 reached 965%, and the sales revenue growth rate reached 1810%, which is much higher than other types of soft drink industries.

From the perspective of brands, in 2019, Chengde Lulu accounted for 90% of the almond milk market, Yangyuan Drinks accounted for 88% of the walnut milk market, and Coco Tree accounted for 80% of the coconut juice market. Plant protein beverages show that there are big brands in the subcategories but no giants as a whole. However, according to data from 2020, the market share of leading brands has shrunk slightly, especially in the oat-based protein milk market. The emergence of new brands such as OATLY and oatoat has brought a new competitive landscape to the industry.

Consumers are upgrading, and consumption channels and consumption scenarios are becoming more diverse.

Compared with the emerging market, the traditional plant protein beverage market has differences in consumer portrait, consumer channels, and consumption scenarios . Taking Six Walnuts as an example, its core consumer group is the middle-aged and elderly people in small towns from third to sixth tier cities . They have a low price acceptance and are more likely to buy in traditional offline supermarkets. There is an obvious seasonal cycle in consumption, and it is often used as a Spring Festival gift or party drink.

New plant protein beverages such as OATLY entered the coffee market and quickly gained consumer recognition with the "coffee companion" scenario. Its core consumer group is mainly new white-collar workers in first- and second-tier cities , who generally have a high acceptance of prices and are willing to try new things. In addition to offline channels such as supermarkets and convenience stores, we will use social media to increase the proportion of online sales.

02 Brand Case

The entry of giants brings market education, new brands have different strategies, and health becomes a common selling point

oatoat is one of the rapidly emerging new plant milk brands. It entered the oat milk market in 2020 and was the first to propose the "clean label" slogan, educating users to read the ingredient list, using " simple ingredients, healthy and delicious " as its selling point. It uses the large single product model to vertically expand its user base and tap into potential consumers of all ages, including the elderly and children.

Cereal Planet was also established in 2020. With "anti-sugar substitute" as its main selling point, it proposed the concept of plant-based meal replacement drinks. Both the product concept and packaging are youthful, focusing on mainstream users aged 18 to 35. By expanding product categories horizontally , it has launched a variety of flavors such as cactus mango and avocado to enrich its product line.

As early as 2017, Yili entered the field of plant protein beverages and established the sub-brand Zhixuan . When Zhixuan was first established, it entered the soy milk market, launched the concept of plant milk in 2019, and developed new products such as oat milk and coconut milk fermented ambient yogurt in 2020, and has been continuously active in the plant protein beverage market.

The entry of giants is both good and bad for emerging brands. Take Zhixuan as an example. With the support of Yili's brand, the healthy concepts of plant milk such as high dietary fiber and 0 added sucrose can quickly ferment among its national consumer base , thereby achieving the effect of user education. But it also means intensified competition, which requires emerging brands to differentiate themselves in many aspects such as track strategy, product strategy, and launch strategy.

03 Brand social media marketing strategy

Judging from the platform voice in the past 8 months, the three brands are concentrated on four social media platforms: Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and WeChat official accounts. Among them, Weibo is still the platform that the brands focus on. In terms of interaction volume, Zhixuan has the highest interaction volume, followed by Cereal Planet.

Oatoat-Select key delivery platforms in different time periods, and promote products through influencers on multiple platforms

Judging from the trend of Oatoat-related content and the number of influencers in the past eight months, Oatoat increased its investment in Xiaohongshu in March, and increased its investment in Weibo and Douyin during the promotion period in June, July and August , and selected key investment platforms in different time periods.

Judging from the distribution of the related KOL matrix, the levels of related influencers show an olive-shaped distribution . Weibo and Douyin influencers are spread across all levels, while Xiaohongshu and WeChat platforms mostly use mid-level and tail-end influencers for large-scale promotion. In terms of account selection, Weibo mostly promotes new products and distributes discount information for beauty, fashion, food, and health accounts, such as using the topic #越方越健康# to promote the new small square bottle. Douyin is mostly food, grass-roots, and health accounts, while Xiaohongshu is mainly composed of food, beverage, and travel accounts.

Oatoat-Weibo focuses on promoting new products, and interesting content is more effective

On Xiaohongshu and Douyin platforms, the content released appears to be richer, such as the joint information of the brand marketing campaign " Fisheye Coffee X oatoat Oat Milk Youyou Oat Series" , and the cooperation with the fitness brand "Wells" to guide offline store visits and check-ins ; the focus of the product's own promotion is on keywords with functionality and sense of scene, such as Internet celebrity drinks, low-fat and light calories, what fairies are drinking, breakfast, coffee, fitness and fat loss .

Judging from the average unit fan interaction volume of influencers with different account types, influencers who publish animation and grass-planting products have strong interactive capabilities, and are popular among users in the form of interesting animation popular science or beverage tutorials.

Grain Planet-focused on Weibo and Xiaohongshu, connecting with a large number of mid-level influencers

In the past eight months, Cereal Planet has focused on Weibo and Xiaohongshu . It also increased its investment in Xiaohongshu in March , and will reach the same level as Weibo in June.

Judging from the distribution of the related KOL matrix, the levels of related influencers show an olive-shaped distribution, and Weibo influencers are spread across all levels. Among them, a large number of mid-level influencers are selected to be deployed on Weibo and Douyin. Weibo accounts are mostly beauty and fashion, life, and food accounts, while Douyin accounts are mostly food and internet celebrity beauty accounts.

Grain Planet-Low-fat weight loss has become the focus of advertising, and funny and interesting accounts have high interaction

In terms of the content it delivers, Cereal Planet focuses on the selling points of its own products , highlighting keywords such as pure plant-based oatmeal drinks, recommended for weight loss parties, a must-have for girls losing weight, low-fat and low-calorie, and other scenarios for women's weight loss and fitness .

Judging from the average unit fan interaction volume of influencers with different account types, influencers who publish funny anecdotes, beauty and fashion have strong interactive capabilities and are popular among users for their way of introducing products through storytelling scenarios.

Zhixuan-Leveraging on celebrities to increase investment in March and April, the number of related influencers is pyramid-shaped

Judging from the trend of related content and the number of influencers in the past eight months, Zhixuan took advantage of the birthday of brand spokesperson Li Yuchun and brand ambassador Gong Jun to increase its investment in Weibo in March and April , and increased its investment in Xiaohongshu in May to warm up for the big promotion.

Judging from the distribution of the related KOL matrix, the levels of related influencers show a pyramid distribution . Weibo and Douyin influencers are spread across all levels, while Xiaohongshu mostly uses mid-level and tail-end influencers for large-scale promotion. In terms of account selection, Weibo is mostly about beauty, fashion, and food, distributing celebrity endorsement content and discount information, Douyin is mostly about comedy, games, food, and lifestyle accounts, and Xiaohongshu is mainly about food.

Zhixuan-Strong binding celebrity effect, good interaction effect of health-related accounts

In terms of content delivery, Zhixuan mainly promotes oat milk and plant milk products, and still strongly binds the two major traffic stars Gong Jun and Li Yuchun . For example, Gong Jun enters the brand's live broadcast room to help sell goods, and uses the keyword Zhixuan live broadcast to do secondary distribution of content on platforms such as Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili to extend the publicity effect.

Judging from the average unit fan interaction volume of influencers with different account types, health and emotional influencers have strong interactive capabilities, and their way of introducing products through sitcoms, life vlogs, etc. is popular among users.

From the placement of these three brands, we can actually find some rules:

1. Weibo is still an important place for building brand awareness, and is often used as the first launch site for new products and brand information;

2. Tik Tok is becoming a major destination for brand placement , and the rapid spread of short videos helps brand marketing;

3. Brands often adopt a pyramid or rugby-shaped influencer placement strategy, selecting influencers with a large number of fans on Weibo and Douyin , and selecting mid- and low-level influencers on platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Bilibili to promote products on a large scale, and placing products on multiple platforms to expand influence ;

4. When choosing accounts and content types, clarify your own selling points and create interesting content to be more popular with users.

But we will also find that most plant protein drinks on the market nowadays promote the concept of "healthy and low-fat" and use this as the core for their marketing. As more and more brands emerge, if they cannot extract selling points and brand connotations that are closer to user needs, it is inevitable that brands will become homogenized.

A large number of new brands have poured into the market, but after a fierce competition, only a few are remembered by users. Taking the meal replacement market as an example, how many are still remembered by users today? The meal replacement track and the plant protein beverage track have similarities in target populations. Take Wonderlab as an example. Since its establishment in 2019, it has entered the meal replacement milkshake track, taking Generation Z as its core target population and "fullness and health, fat loss without getting fat" as its core selling point . It quickly topped the Tmall sub-category from 0-1 and carried out the first wave of brand awareness and market education . Now, by expanding into the probiotics category, it has embarked on the path of brand 1-10, and further subdivided to focus on consumers' needs for intestinal and oral health.

We also pulled Wonderlab’s social media delivery data for the past eight months and found that Wonderlab’s current delivery volume is still very large, with more than 3,000 associated KOL accounts , strengthening its brand impression through high-frequency delivery. In terms of platform selection, we focus on Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and WeChat public accounts . The accounts deployed show a very obvious pyramid shape , relying on a large number of tail accounts to bring goods . The account types cover all types such as comedy, food, knowledge and information, medical care, etc. In terms of content delivery, the main keywords are such as good things sharing and conscientious domestic products , supplemented by special keywords with strong functional attributes such as weight loss and oil-removing tools.

Wang Baobao's marketing director once said, "Different areas have different user characteristics. We will target different areas to meet the preferences of different users. Although Wang Baobao itself is a food brand, it is not the case that people who visit the food section will have a demand for healthy and delicious food, breakfast, and light meals. Therefore, the brand needs to cut in from various types of content to meet the needs of these general users ."

After the brand is launched from 0 to 1, how to move to 1 to 10 to enhance brand awareness, strengthen brand value and differentiation requires, on the one hand, the brand to clarify its own positioning and selling points, and to dig deep into the exact needs of consumers; on the other hand, it also requires more detailed layout and attempts in marketing investment.

Author: Facing Technology

Source: Fruit Collection