Did “earthy marketing” make Mixue Bingcheng successful?

Introduction:

A while ago, Mixue Bingcheng became popular again with its strength.

"You love me, I love you, Mixue Ice City is so sweet" - a simple, earthy lyric spread like weeds across major platforms.

Listening to the song was not enough, a snow king kept appearing in my mind dancing.

After the original advertising MV of Mixue Bingcheng was released, it inspired the infinite imagination of netizens, who made secondary creations based on the original version.

Various versions have appeared on Bilibili and Tik Tok, including Japanese version, French version, rock version, and game version, some of which are so weird that you will question your life.

From visual to auditory, it's crazy brainwashing.

Mixue Bingcheng's "50-cent special effects" MV adheres to the style of saving money. If someone dislikes it, one sentence can kill you: "I don't dislike your poverty, and you don't dislike my low status!"

Reality of the world~

01 Mixue Ice City, the leader in the milk tea industry

Mixue Bingcheng, the brand you once looked down upon, has now opened more than 15,000 stores across the country. Can you believe it?

All I can say is that in China, with such a huge population base, there are no small businesses.

A hamburger supports McDonald's $174.3 billion business;

A cup of coffee gave birth to the international giant Starbucks, which has more than 32,000 stores worldwide;

The "ice cream + milk tea" business was made big by a young man from Henan named Zhang Hongchao.

1. The advancement of a small person

Speaking of Zhang Hongchao, the founder of Mixue Bingcheng, he has the fighting spirit that an entrepreneur should have.

He has been doing some small business with his family since he was a child, such as raising poultry and growing various herbs, and has accumulated some experience by observing and learning.

After graduating from junior high school, I went out alone to make a living, but due to my educational background, I couldn't find a good job.

Unwilling to admit defeat, he studied on his own and enrolled in Henan University of Finance and Economics. He said, "I can learn something in university."

While in college, he discovered a new product – shaved ice, and saw a business opportunity in it.

How do you make shaved ice delicious? Zhang Hongchao began to think about it.

At first, he sought out some professionals to learn from, but he could never create a flavor that satisfied him.

Then, he kept reading books and exploring, adding and subtracting several seasonings. After a while, he felt the taste was almost right, so he set up a stall during the summer vacation and specialized in making shaved ice and other cold drinks.

Zhang Hongchao named the stall "Cold Current Shaved Ice", which was the predecessor of Mixue Ice City.

Shaved ice is a typical "tidal demand" business. It is very good in the summer, but not many people eat it in the winter.

Moreover, earning a thousand yuan a month is far from enough for an ambitious person like Zhang Hongchao.

As the stall business became more and more prosperous, Zhang Hongchao took 4,000 yuan from his grandmother, rented a 20-square-meter shop on Wenhua Road in Zhengzhou, renamed it "Mi Xue Bing Cheng", and developed a variety of products such as snow bubbles, milkshakes, sundaes, boba, and milk tea.

That year, I was 20 years old.

2. Expansion period: from Henan to the whole country

In 2006, Zhang Hongchao took a fancy to the ice cream business and launched "Mi Xue Bing Cheng Fresh Ice Cream". Due to its distinctive features such as deliciousness, affordability, health and convenience, the product set off a trend of fresh ice cream as soon as it was launched on the market.

In Zhang Hongchao we also see the quality of "those who have the will will find ways to achieve their goals".

For example, when ice cream was too expensive, he would go to the flea market; when the supply chain was immature, he built his own supply chain and asked relatives and friends for help to ensure the quality and taste of the products.

In June 2007, Mixue Ice City Fresh Ice Cream officially opened to franchisees, and by the end of the year, there were 36 franchise stores.

The following year, Mixue Bingcheng Trading Co., Ltd. was registered, and more than 180 Mixue Bingcheng stores were opened in Zhejiang, Anhui, Hebei, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hunan and other cities, officially expanding from Henan to the whole country.

In 2009, Mixue Bingcheng underwent a comprehensive upgrade from product matrix to brand image and strategic promotion.

After Zhang Hongchao straightened out the standardized processes of Mixue Bingcheng in the early stage, he opened up franchise channels and started a crazy expansion mode.

▲ Financing situation of new tea drinks

From 2016 to 2020, the number of Mixue Bingcheng stores was 2,500, 3,500, 5,000, 7,500 and 10,000 respectively. Today there are 15,000.

This number makes tea brands such as Heytea and Nayuki's Tea, which are also trying to gain market share, ashamed.

Although franchising is good, there will also be management problems, just like the food safety issue that occurred in May this year, which was caused by the franchisee's mistakes.

Fortunately, this generation of netizens is particularly tolerant of Mixue Bingcheng. Not only did they not blame it, but they were concerned about not being able to enjoy their favorite drinks in the future.

When faced with the question of whether franchisees can make money, Mixue Ice City took the initiative and answered everyone's doubts on its official website:

Mixue Bingcheng emphasizes its advantages in the supply chain. It supplies raw materials to franchisees at cost price, and the headquarters bears the logistics costs to ensure that franchisees still have profit margins after "small profits but quick turnover".

When it comes to "small profits but quick turnover", Mixue Bingcheng has had the "saving money" gene since its inception.

02 Save money to the end

3 yuan for ice cream, 4 yuan for lemonade, 7 yuan for grass jelly...

Product price is closely related to brand positioning, just as Mixue Bingcheng’s brand positioning is “saving money”.

1. Mixue Ice City’s low-price positioning

When a new product or brand enters the market, it is often difficult to find a blank mind. How can a brand secure a place in a niche market?

Trout, the father of "positioning", mentioned four positioning methods in his book "Positioning" to help brands find vacancies for positioning.

The four methods are:

First, the size of the space

That is, the size of the product. For example, when commercial vehicles were popular, the Beetle repositioned the car by relying on its short size, thereby occupying a part of the market segment.

Second, high-priced vacancies

When your product category is the first to enter the consumer's mind, consumers are not very sensitive to price and the price is quite vague, so high-price positioning will have a great advantage.

Third, low-priced vacancies

Not everyone can win by offering high prices. 80% of the lower-tier markets need high-quality and low-priced products, and commodities can profit from the strategy of “small profits but quick turnover”.

In contrast to high-priced vacancies, Mixue Bingcheng uses low-priced vacancies to achieve a differentiated advantage.

In the market, the average customer spending of tea brands like Heytea and Nayuki is basically around 30 yuan, while the average customer spending of tea brands such as CoCo and Yidiandian is around 15 yuan.

Mixue Bingcheng cleverly filled the low-price market gap and seized the third- and fourth-tier markets with an average customer unit price of around 6 yuan.

It has occupied a place in the extremely competitive tea beverage market and has become the brand with the most stores and the widest audience.

Fourth, create space and reposition competitors.

There are so many products in each category on the market and so few vacancies that the chances of finding a niche and entering people’s minds are slim.

At this time, it is necessary to create vacancies through repositioning, starting with competitors that have already occupied people's minds.

2. Mixue Ice City’s trinity supply chain

As the "price butcher" in the tea industry, Mixue Bingcheng is able to control product prices at a low level by relying on a complete supply chain system to lower costs and achieve the goal of "saving money".

If Mixue Bingcheng wants to save money to the extreme, it has to work hard in the entire process including production, transportation, warehousing, sales operations, etc.

First of all, the raw materials are mainly self-produced.

As early as 2007, Mixue Ice City had its own raw material processing plant, which only produced ice cream powder and crisp cones.

By 2012, the business had grown so big that the workshop-style self-built factory could no longer meet the front-end demand, so Henan Daka Food Co., Ltd. became the largest raw material supplier for Mixue Bingcheng.

After the mass production of several main raw materials such as special milk and milk pulp, the production cost will naturally decrease.

Secondly, a logistics and transportation system was built with Henan as the center and covering most parts of the country.

DaKa Food has Henan main warehouse, Southwest warehouse, South China warehouse, Northeast warehouse, and Xinjiang warehouse. In January this year, the new Hainan Xian Yi Da Supply Chain Co., Ltd. was also established.

When franchisees need raw materials, DAKA Foods has the supply capacity to cover the whole country and can deliver them directly to stores free of charge, without any middlemen making a profit from the price difference.

Finally, minimize store operating costs.

The low operating cost is mainly reflected in the fact that the product has few production steps and is easy to operate.

A new employee only needs half a month to a month of training to learn how to make products in the store.

Compared with Nayuki's Tea, the time is much shorter. Nayuki's Tea employee training takes as short as three months and as long as half a year.

It can be said that Mixue Bingcheng is not a milk tea shop at all, but is essentially a supplier of raw materials.

Self-produced raw materials + warehousing and logistics network + low operating costs , Mixue Bingcheng’s three-in-one supply chain will “save money” to the end.

03 The countryside surrounds the city, the source of happiness for the down-to-earth youth

Speaking of "surrounding the cities with the countryside", everyone must be familiar with it. When proposing this strategic layout, the great man said this: "At present, the enemy is big and we are small, the enemy is strong and we are weak, and a central city like Changsha is not the place for us to stay."

In fact, this strategic policy is the application of Sun Tzu's Art of War's idea of ​​"avoiding the strong and attacking the weak": when leading troops to fight, one must avoid the enemy's main force and strong points, and specifically attack the enemy's weak links, which will make it easier to achieve victory .

As the saying goes, business is like a battlefield.

Mixue Bingcheng is well aware that first- and second-tier cities are not conducive to its own development, so it has shifted its goals and shifted its focus to third- and fourth-tier cities, which is also a practical application of the strategy of "surrounding the cities from the countryside."

▲ Mixue Ice City store release

1. Focus on the lower-tier markets

According to data from the Jiuhai brand monitoring platform, as of June 19, Mixue Bingcheng has covered 349 cities in 31 provinces across the country, with a total of 16,949 stores.

Among all stores, 60% are located in third-tier and below cities. Stores are widely distributed in third- and fourth-tier cities and towns, as well as in urban villages and near schools in big cities.

In the early years, Mixue Bingcheng also wanted to enter the first- and second-tier high-end beverage industry, but the results were not satisfactory. For example, the high-end store in 2009 closed after two years of operation, and in 2017, Mixue Bingcheng’s promotion of a new product, coffee, also failed to achieve good results.

After gaining a foothold in the sinking market, we can also see Mixue Bingcheng’s "ambition" for the high-end market in first- and second-tier cities.

In the past six months, Mixue Bingcheng has added more than 4,000 stores, including 203 in first-tier cities, 797 in new first-tier cities, and 746 in second-tier cities.

2. Become a source of happiness for the downtrodden youth

Mixue Bingcheng has firmly captured the hearts of students and small town youth who adore milk tea, and it has become a source of happiness for this generation of young people.

Young people at the lower end of the social ladder are not interested in sentiment or prestige, nor are they willing to pay for high premiums on products.

They prefer products with high cost-performance ratio. If a brand does not have an absolute advantage in terms of cost-performance ratio, it is destined to fail to make a big splash.

Regarding the single-digit pricing of Mixue Bingcheng, someone once said: Mixue Bingcheng is the "savior" of "slum girls".

The love of young people from lower-class areas for Mixue Bingcheng is also reflected in their inclusiveness of its products.

Some time ago, China Quality News Network secretly visited three Mixue Ice City stores in Zhengzhou, Jinan and Wuhan, and found food safety problems of varying degrees, such as:

Relabel opened milk and cans that have expired and continue to be used;

Continue to use semi-finished food ingredients such as overnight milk, tea soup, milk tea, rose jelly, pearls, etc. by changing the "expiration tracking card";

There are also a series of operations such as not washing the lemon peel, the clerk grabbing lemons with bare hands, stacking fresh fruit slices into cups, and processing milk tea next to an uncovered trash can.

Once the news was exposed, Mixue Bingcheng immediately issued an apology on Weibo.

If it were a normal food and beverage brand, it would have been criticized by netizens long ago.

There were few insults from netizens on Mixue Ice City’s apology Weibo, but instead the comments were like this:

“Give us each an ice cream and I’ll forgive you;

Can lemon aloe be put back on the shelves? (cry);

I just want to say that Mixue Bingcheng’s products are of good quality and inexpensive, so I support them. Do you think those expensive stores are clean? It just hasn't been discovered! ”

I have to say that this generation of netizens’ tolerance towards Mixue Bingcheng is truly earth-shattering and it is true love for sure.

04 Mixue Ice City, an underestimated entertainment company

Judging from the popularity of its theme song MV, Mixue Bingcheng can be considered an underrated entertainment company.

"You love me, I love you, Mixue Bingcheng is so sweet" is adapted from the British folk song "Oh! Suanna".

This song was created 174 years ago. Over the past 100 years, it has been continuously covered all over the world and has become famous.

This time, Mixue Bingcheng used this song with a vintage and earthy flavor to hit the retro feelings of young people.

In fact, many consumer brands use retro songs to penetrate consumers' minds. For example, Meiji Landou adapted "Two Tigers" into "Meiji Landou, Meiji Landou, cheese sticks, cheese sticks."

▲Snow Baby from Mixue Ice City

This type of song adaptation captures the three characteristics of the brand symbol: " short, flat, and fast ."

It is short and easy to understand. For example, the theme song of Mixue Bingcheng has only 13 words and that of Meikelandou has 14 words. It only takes 10 seconds to sing. It is simple and clear.

Ping means easy to understand, with magical soundtrack and straightforward lyrics, and it also points out the brand name and products.

Speed ​​represents the dissemination power of a work, and the focus lies on social media. Mixue Bingcheng just happened to be in the trend of short video dissemination, while Meiji Landou relied on Focus Media.

1. The forefront of marketing: topicality, communication, and secondary creativity

It has to be said that Mixue Bingcheng is deeply loved by young people. In addition to its extremely high cost-effectiveness, it is also inseparable from its pervasive marketing.

Its marketing is always very topical, contagious, and occasionally even has secondary creativity.

As for the theme song of this song, it has been spread wildly on major platforms, with 130 million views on Weibo, 1.09 billion views on Douyin, and over 10 million views on the official MV on Bilibili, and various adapted versions have emerged one after another.

On May 20th last year, Mixue Bingcheng launched a creative marketing campaign for getting couple certificates.

As long as consumers purchase two drinks, they can receive a couple certificate issued by Mixue Bingcheng that is highly similar to a marriage certificate.

Every consumer who posts their couple’s ID on social media platforms is helping Mixue Bingcheng do low-cost marketing.

Is Mixue Bingcheng tacky?

Even Mixue Ice City CEO Zhang Hongfu bluntly said: "In short, the venue is low-end, the profit is low, it's just a low-end job digging for food in the dirt."

So, it’s okay if you think it’s rustic. This is the charm of rustic marketing.

2. The charm of earthy marketing 

Earthy means down-to-earth.

Brands can bring both parties closer by communicating with users in a down-to-earth manner.

As those born after 1995 and 2000 become the mainstream consumer groups, brands have begun to strive to cater to the aesthetics and preferences of young people. Tuwei culture is the expression and promotion of the diverse personalities of different groups of people, which meets the psychological needs of young people in pursuit of individuality.

During the epidemic, Lao Xiang Ji became popular with its "earthy" videos.

The video is set in a rural area. The chairman sits behind a red cloth table like an "old cadre", with a loud speaker and an old-fashioned teacup next to him, and a large blackboard behind him.

These vintage elements hit the retro sentiments of young people.

But the retro "earthiness" reveals the truth, which fits with everyone's resonance with rural life while staying at home during the epidemic. It also arouses the audience's nostalgia for rural life and triggers emotional resonance between users and brands.

Of course, although "earthy" marketing is good, it should not be used indiscriminately.

First of all, the brand needs to have a certain degree of market awareness and its brand tone must be deeply rooted in people’s hearts.

For example, the image of Mixue Bingcheng fits the tone of "earthy marketing".

Secondly, earthy marketing is not a fig leaf for vulgar marketing, and it should avoid vulgarization.

Brands cannot pursue traffic without limits and bring their brand image to the bottom.

In addition, when it comes to media placement, it is best to choose new media channels , such as Douyin, Bilibili and other mainstream media that young people like.

Taking advantage of young people ’s curiosity, they create conflicts and detonate the entire Internet.

In short, earthy marketing is only a part of marketing. If a brand wants to be long-lasting, it must be rooted in products, constantly innovate, and meet the ever-changing needs of consumers.