A brief analysis of the success of Jiang Xiaobai liquor from the perspective of product and operation

What should you do in Chongqing? Eat hot pot? I believe that if you go to Chongqing now, you will definitely say to the hot pot restaurant owner: "Boss, another bottle of Jiang Xiaobai , I want the youth version!"

I am Jiang Xiaobai, my life is simple

Jiang Xiaobai is a light-flavored sorghum liquor produced by Chongqing Jiangji Winery. It is brewed with red-skinned glutinous sorghum as the only raw material. The target users are the new youth group. When some people lament that "young people don't understand the culture of liquor", Jiang Xiaobai believes that "liquor doesn't understand young people". It abandons the high-end packaging of traditional liquor, advocates simplicity and purity, interacts with consumers through thoughtful copywriting printed on the bottle, and has carved out a path for itself in the fiercely competitive liquor market .

Founded in Chongqing in 2011 , Jiang Xiaobai launched its first sorghum liquor "I am Jiang Xiaobai" in March 2012. In the most difficult liquor industry, Jiang Xiaobai has achieved annual sales of 300 million , 100% growth against the trend every year , and sales of 10 million in two weeks in the JD official flagship store. This is the result that Jiang Xiaobai achieved in 5 years, an unexpected result.

Imagine if an investor gave you 50 million yuan and asked you to start a business in the liquor industry , what would you think?

I don’t know what everyone is thinking, but I will definitely think: This investor is crazy, how can this be successful. In such a mature liquor industry, it is difficult to succeed with even 500 million, let alone 500 million!

But Jiang Xiaobai did it. It took him only 5 years to create Jiang Xiaobai right under the noses of giants such as Moutai and Wuliangye. It is said that there are no opportunities in traditional industries, so how did Jiang Xiaobai succeed? This article will briefly discuss Jiang Xiaobai's successful strategy from three aspects: positioning, branding and sales .

1. Born for positioning, providing solutions for consumption scenarios

Jiang Xiaobai ’s first major strategy for success is “ positioning ”. Before talking about positioning, let’s talk about the STP theory first. STP refers to market segmentation, target market selection, and positioning . People who have studied marketing should be very familiar with STP. The teacher in class must have mentioned this concept to us again and again because it is so important. Before starting a business, you must think through these three questions thoroughly.

The STP strategy proposed by American marketing expert Philip Kotler

The market is a collection of many consumers and suppliers. No single company can meet all demands, so we need to segment the market and then choose a target market to enter.

What is positioning? Positioning is the masterpiece of marketing strategist Jack Trout , and it is also a concept that I strongly agree with. It has changed the old marketing perception of "satisfying needs" and believed that "satisfying needs" cannot win customers, especially in today's extremely developed productivity. There are many suppliers in every field. If we are still obsessed with satisfying needs, we will definitely fail. On the contrary, we need to win the minds of users. Today's corporate competition is a battle to win the minds of users . So how did Jiang Xiaobai win this war?

Before analyzing Jiang Xiaobai’s positioning strategy, let us first ask ourselves: If it were us, how would we position ourselves in the liquor industry? I guess many people may think so. Liquor is drunk at the dining table. It is divided into sauce-flavored, light-flavored, strong-flavored, rice-flavored, phoenix-flavored, mixed-flavored, and other flavors (biodogs are relatively knowledgeable about wine). It is positioned as one of these flavors and products are produced to meet user needs.

But Jiang Xiaobai doesn’t think so. It starts from the scenario and aims to provide solutions for specific consumption scenarios. What motivates us to drink? Business entertainment, keeping in touch, releasing emotions...these are actually all real-life scenarios , and products should provide solutions for specific scenarios. After careful analysis, we can find that Jiang Xiaobai is positioned in the following three consumption scenarios:

• Small gatherings, non-business social gatherings between colleagues, friends, and classmates;
• Small moments, such as a successful confession, getting a satisfactory offer, being praised by the boss, quitting and changing jobs;
• Little emotions, thinking of her sitting in the front row in high school, thinking of basketball and brothers in college, thinking of the panic when I first stepped out of campus, these special little emotions.

Small gatherings, small moments, and small moods, this is Jiang Xiaobai's product positioning , and it provides a variety of product series for these three consumption scenarios. It encourages young people to face their emotions, not avoid them, not be afraid, and be themselves. This positioning strategy has helped Jiang Xiaobai open up a new blue ocean in the fiercely competitive and monopolized liquor industry, and is one of the important strategies for its success.

2. Brand personalization and user emotional sustenance

What to do after having a clear positioning and materialized product? Is it sales? No, it’s about building a brand! Brand personalization is another important strategy for Jiang Xiaobai to capture the hearts of the post-80s and post-90s generation.

Before introducing the brand, let us ask ourselves a question: What is a brand? I think everyone is familiar with the following two conversations.

01 What kind of beer does the boss have?

There are Harbin Beer, Yanjing Beer, and Tsingtao Beer.

Then come to Yanjing.

02 Boss, do you have Snow Flower Brave the World ? How much is a bottle?

Yes, 4 yuan.

Now do we know what a brand is? The first conversation is about the product, while the second conversation is about the brand. It is the user’s clear consumption demands and cognition of the product in a specific scenario. The highest level brand is personalized, and it is the embodiment of a certain specific emotion of the user .

In the field of brand management, there is a holy saying called "language nails are visual hammers" . It is an effective way to build a brand. Let's see how Jiang Xiaobai builds its brand.

First of all, the brand name Jiang Xiaobai is personified. It is not as distant as Moutai and Wuliangye. It is very approachable and easy to be remembered. All of Jiang Xiaobai's texts and videos use the first-person pronoun "I am Jiang Xiaobai" to tell stories and express emotions. In fact, Jiang Xiaobai is everyone's youth of fear, pressure, and struggle.

When old friends get together or when a person feels lonely and wants to have a drink, users will think of Jiang Xiaobai, because it is not a lifeless product, it is personalized and can listen to my emotions. And this is also the essence of Chinese wine culture, the emotional need .

Secondly, let’s take a look at how Jiang Xiaobai does with the visual hammer.

Even though time passes, we are still young

Jiang Xiaobai became popular on social networks thanks to its large number of bottle designs like the one shown above and its thoughtful copywriting. It enhances the emotional connection between users and products, and the product is no longer cold and impersonal. Such a unique visual design can make users notice it and remember it when they see it for the first time. Even if they can't name it, they can still spread it to their friends: "Have you ever drunk the liquor with cartoon characters and literary poems on the bottle?" And this is the great effect of the visual hammer.

This is Jiang Xiaobai's brand strategy. It relies on its personalized brand to capture the hearts of those born in the 1980s and 1990s, and become an emotional sustenance for confused, struggling and stressed young people.

3. Users force channels to change the industry value chain

You might as well ask yourself, after accurate positioning and brand personalization, what will be your next strategic move?

If it were me, I would definitely hire a lot of sales people to promote the product to major distributors and restaurants, because the original sales logic of the liquor industry is: channels are king . From the general agent to the second-level distributor to the restaurant owner, if they don’t sell your products, users won’t be able to buy them. The business rules of the entire industry are a zero-sum game of credit sales and bargaining between the channel and product parties. If you sell at a lower price and make more profit, I will sell more. But how did Jiang Xiaobai do it?

Jiang Xiaobai did not focus most of its energy on breaking into channel dealers. To be honest, you can't break into them. Compared with Wuliangye, Daoxiangcun and others, Jiang Xiaobai with its low average customer spending cannot catch the attention of channel dealers. In fact, users are the sheep behind the scenes. All profits come from users, and it is the hard truth that we should firmly grasp users. Jiang Xiaobai’s strategic advantage is: users drive channels forward !

Jiang Xiaobai's CMO said: "When many users go to a restaurant and ask the owner if they have Jiang Xiaobai, the channel partners will come to us on their own."

Therefore, Jiang Xiaobai invested a lot of resources in marketing and directly contacted consumers. So, we saw Jiang Xiaobai in movies (Passing By Your World, Hot Pot Heroes...) and on the subway. Here, I have to share their copy with you all. It is so wonderful. I guess there must be a marketing master behind Jiang Xiaobai giving guidance.

Jiang Xiaobai subway advertisement

Jiang Xiaobai movie placement

Get everyone drunk just to talk to you

What you drink is wine, what you talk about is love

It's not that we are greedy for wine, but we want to chat more

I believe most people would want to try it after seeing this kind of copywriting.

After reading the above copywriting and product designs, I think everyone should understand Jiang Xiaobai’s secret to success. With precise positioning, personalized brand building, and user feedback channels , Jiang Xiaobai has found a blue ocean in the red ocean of the liquor industry by relying on these three strategies. It’s not that there are no opportunities in traditional industries, it’s just that we lack innovation most of the time! ! !