The originator of the "water concept" - Nongfu Shanquan overturned the "baby water"?

Recently, in response to the issue of "baby water", which is a hot topic among consumers in the market, the Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission selected three brands of "baby water" that are more commonly available on the market, namely Nongfu Shanquan, Evergrande Bingquan, and Arctic Spring, and compared the ingredient content of their unmarked water for infants and children.

The results showed that there was no significant difference between the ingredient content of the same brand of "baby water" and ordinary water. For example, Nongfu Shanquan (suitable for infants) is marked with a magnesium content of 0.5-10.0, a potassium content of 0.35-7.0, a sodium content of 0.8-20.0, a calcium content of 4.0-20.0, metasilicic acid of 1.8-50.0; while Nongfu Mountain Spring ordinary drinking water labeled magnesium content of ≥ 0.5, potassium content of ≥ 0.35, sodium content of ≥ 0.8, calcium content of ≥ 4, metasilicicic acid for ≥ 1.8.

In this regard, Fudan University School of Public Health nutrition expexpertrofessor Li Shuguang said that scientifically there is no "baby water", this is a concept of hype, and Chiand na's water for infants did not develop a unified standard. In China, in addition to infant formula, most of the other foods labeled as "baby food" and "suitable for infants" are self-appointed and commercial "gimmicks".

From the above analysis, the concept of "baby water" seems to be a complete "flop" for Nongfu Mountain Spring. But on a good financial note, in addition to baby water, there are many new concepts of drinking water on the market such as tea water, ripe water, and soft water, so are these all IQ taxes? And why is the bottled water industry in this situation? These are worth exploring a little.

Bottled water: the fleece comes off the pig's back

In fact, from a certain point of view, the market is now a variety of "water concepts" is the bottled drinking water industry is extremely in the volume of the helpless performance.

Because water is an extremely special category, and other foods and beverage categories continue to develop new flavors to fight for consumer taste buds' differences, simple water taste, taste differences are very small, and most consumers are almost difficult experiencing the difference between differentiation. So to stand out in the fierce competition for water, both new brands and established players have to constantly redefine what "healthy water" is.

Simply put, the water itself can not directly prove that in addition to the magical effects of thirst-quenching, brand companies need to rely on the scarcity of origin or other nutritional story concepts and other artificial additional factors to support the "water" health effects, selling water business logic focus on the redefinition of "water The logic of the water business is focused on redefining "water", rather than "water" itself, so there is a sense that the fleece comes off the pig's back.

However, it is interesting to note that, according to the financial observation of the drinking water market, the "redefinition" of water by brand companies is not haphazard, but roughly follows two paths.

One is from drinking pure water (public water supply system) → natural water (from the surface, such as rivers, and lakes) → natural mineral water (from deep underground) the progressive evolution of water quality sources, and the origin of marketing has become the key.

Because there was no need to consider the source of water and it was clean enough, around the year 2000, the mainstream bottled water in the market was "pure water" and the industry leaders were Wahahaha and Lepai. But in April 2000, the "upstart" Nongfu Shanquan held a press conference and declared that since pure water lacked the trace elements needed by the human body and was not beneficial to human health, Nongfu Shanquan would "stop producing pure water and switch to natural water".

As a result, the first shot was fired in the battle over the water quality of bottled water in China.

Subsequently, in a series of pure water and natural water quality health comparisons "combination of the fist" down, produced from Zhejiang Qiandao Lake, Guangdong Wan Yuan Lake, and Hubei Danjiangkou Reservoir, the consumer perception concept of natural water is better than pure water gradually penetrate people.

But compared to natural water, on the one hand, natural mineral water from deep underground, the source of water has strict geographic requirements; on the other hand, natural mineral water through the rock layer filtered over the years, its mineral content compared to the lake water and better. So whether from the water quality or water source, natural mineral water is also a descending blow to natural water, and this means that the dominance of Nongfu Mountain Spring may be threatened.

In fact, in 2013, Evergrande Ice Spring was launched, playing the "not all nature's water is good water, we are not carrying surface water" concept, the spearhead pointed directly at the water of Nongfu Mountain Spring is only natural water, but not natural mineral water.

At this point, from pure water to natural mineral water, from low-end to high-end Chinese bottled water quality competition has hit the ceiling of the category, so the industry was forced into the homogenization of the category, looking for a differentiated product core marketing point of the in-volume competition stage. During this period, two routes have diverged, one of which is the source of water, also known as "origin marketing".

On the one hand, the role of brand marketing, for farmers' springs, Baishan Mountain, and other brands of water enterprises, although the essence of natural mineral water, the source of water is almost completely different, and this in itself is a differentiated marketing point can do. This is because whether it is Changbai Mountain, Luofu Mountain, or Kunlun Mountain, it is essentially a unique and scarce resource. If Nongfu Shanquan occupies Changbai Mountain and Baishan Mountain occupies Luofu Mountain, it will be almost impossible for other brands to emphasize Changbai Mountain and Luofu Mountain at the marketing level, and this is the core barrier.

On the other hand, the role of the value of the product, as the mountain is divided into "ordinary mountain" and "famous mountain", so its natural mineral water will naturally be unconsciously formed in the consumer psychological level value price stratification, and if the brand can timely seize the Changbai Mountain, Kunlun Mountain If the brand can seize the Changbai Mountain, Kunlun Mountain, the Alps, and other more scarce "famous mountains", then the value of the product is inherently more than other mineral water products to occupy the market advantage.

At this point, the role of origin marketing is mainly to make up for or raise the value of the product and price match through the scarcity of origin attributes, and the product branded with an exclusive consumer memory symbol.

Secondly, from the concept of bottled water category level innovation and the evolution of the development of new paths, storytelling is the key.

Subdivided into two directions: one based on water sources, for specific consumer groups and consumer scenarios to redefine the "water", Nongfu Mountain Spring is one of the representative players. For example, the "overturned" Nongfu Mountain Spring baby water source from Changbai Mountain Moya Spring, is claimed to be low sodium light mineralization, suitable for infants and young children to drink; while Nongfu Mountain Spring tea water is taken from Wuyishan spring water, dedicated to the meeting drinking tea scene.

Let's put aside whether the two are IQ tax aside, just from the development of logic, on the one hand, as with milk powder, baby water is also the separation of buyers and users, so the core of its rise in logic is perhaps the amplification of the health benefits of natural mineral water, the adults are also the parents of the baby "drink rare good water, nourish the body health" concept of health, On the other hand, tea water is in line with the logic of Maotai's "face wine" and "status wine", which represents the value symbol of social status and socialization. However, whether it is baby water or tea water is essentially a different kind of "buy a box and return the pearl" game, people never buy water, but as a health expectation, a status symbol ......

The most straightforward representative of this is the new track of cooked water opened up by Imelang Liangbai Kai. If we are to be serious, the "boiled water" that the public is familiar with is not the same as the cooking water represented by Imaro's cold white water and Master Kong's boiled water, but this does not affect the domestic consumers' perception of cold white water and "boiled water is the best". convergence.

So in essence, the cooked water represented by Imelda's cold white water sells the public sentiment, but also the health concept of "common sense renovation".

The company's main focus is on the development of a new product.

It is worth mentioning that, after the Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission "named" baby water, the good financial in an e-commerce platform search "baby water" keywords were found, in addition to some of the overseas brands, in the domestic head of drinking water players seem to be only Nongfu Mountain Spring a launch of the Baby water, tea water and other new categories, Yi Bao, Jinmailang, Master Kong and Wahaha did not choose to follow the wind to take over.

And if you add in last year's Fukushima white peach incident, it seems that the former king of marketing, Nongfu Mountain Spring, has actively encountered several rollover events in recent years, which makes one wonder what happened to Nongfu Mountain Spring.

According to the Skywatch APP data, in the first half of this year, Nongfu Mountain Spring achieved revenue of 16.599 billion yuan, up 9.4% year-on-year; net profit of 4.608 billion yuan, up 14.8% year-on-year. Although compared to the entire consumer market, Nongfu Mountain Spring still maintains the growth myth of "Water Mao", but compared to the same period last year, with 31.44% revenue growth and 40.09% net profit growth, Nongfu Mountain Spring failed to maintain the momentum of high growth.

What's more, the core product of Nongfu Quan, packaged drinking water, had revenue of 9.349 billion yuan in the first half of this year, an increase of 4.8% compared to the same period last year. This is the lowest growth rate since 2021, with growth slipping by more than 20 percentage points compared to the first half of 2021.

The reason why Nongfuquan has the situation, is related to the impact of the general environment of the external market, according to Nielsen data, the impact of the epidemic, the first half of this year, the entire beverage industry sales decline of 6.8% year-on-year, sales decline of 5.5% year-on-year, and which the packaged water market is a refinement of 10.5%. Coupled with the rising price of PET, the raw material for plastic bottles since this year, further squeezing the revenue profit margin of bottled water, Nongfu Shanquan's business is under obvious pressure.

Secondly, the natural water advantage of Nongfu Mountain Spring may be gradually lost, but also failed to find a new bottled water category concept selling point and new explosive products related.

On the one hand, the natural water > pure water advantage of Nongfu Mountain Spring seems to be losing, and it is also facing fierce competition in the market.

Although mentioned earlier, the product competitiveness of natural water is stronger than pure water and weaker than natural mineral water. But, without the price difference for market reinforcement, the consumer perception of the advantages of Nongfuquan natural water will continue to erode. The most direct manifestation of this is that now the ordinary specifications of Yibao pure water and Nongfushanquan are in the same 2 yuan price segment, that is for many young consumers, almost indifferent to choosing natural water or pure water, and this led to Nongfushanquan's natural water advantage barrier was removed.

If previously, by the advantage of natural water barriers, farmers can ignore the impact of new players in bottled water, but now removed from the armor of farmers, facing the Master Kong, Yi Bao, Yuan Qi Forest, and honey snow ice city, including a variety of new and old players of the market impact, I am afraid that the fist to flesh injury.

On the other hand, in the natural mineral water stalemate stage, Nongfu Mountain Spring is slow to tell the new bottled water category concept selling point, and the second growth curve is difficult to find.

Although the natural mineral water industry has been quite lively in recent years but did not run out of absolute head players. And even though Nongfu Mountain Spring has seized a lot of scarce water sources in advance, but is also subject to the influence of external factors such as consumer education and price, the natural mineral water market as a whole is still in the melee stage.

In this case, the concept of finding a new bottled water category to open up a second growth curve is undoubtedly a choice to alleviate the urgent need. Then now McDonald's cool white open dig out of the cooked water track, and then, for example, Huaxi biological hyaluronic acid water to open the beauty market. In this regard, Nongfu Shanquan is proposing the very concept of baby water that is now "overturned" ......

However, it is worth mentioning that Nongfu Mountain Spring's baby water and tea water are still essentially attempting to break out and overtake the natural mineral water. And the reason why Nongfu Mountain Spring will be so fond of itis, perhaps with its desire to replicate the glory of the past natural water era Nongfu Mountain Spring on Wahaha pure water and Master Kong mineral water descending strike.

Finally, the founder of Nongfu Mountain Spring, Glittering Zhong, has said: water is a "thigh", "because water products in the beverage industry are never likely to decline, while other beverages have a certain history and stage.

And now it seems that "water" will indeed not decline, but the fate of Nongfu Mountain Spring's bottled water, but seems full of suspense ......