Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Supplementary lessons for new consumption and rejuvenation of old consumption

"almost every kind of consumer goods and consumption patterns in China can be redone."

"New consumption is the surest opportunity for the next five to 10 years."

This was a popular saying in the business and investment circles a few years ago.

The so-called new consumption refers to the consumption behavior driven by "new digital technology + new online and offline integration mode + new social media marketing", with young people as the main body.

Once upon a time, "Weibo influenced public opinion, Wechat retained private domain, Douyin created fashion, Meituan decided to have a reputation, Little Red Book was recommended every day, and ladder media was responsible for brainwashing," which became the standard formula for new consumer enterprises.

According to incomplete statistics, 76 rounds of financing were completed in the new consumption sector in May 2021, with a value of more than 10 billion yuan, excluding 11 undisclosed investment rounds, according to the first Financial and Economic data Center. At that time, a milk tea brand was valued at the time of financing, equivalent to more than 100 million yuan per store.

However, starting from the second half of 2021, most of the new consumer enterprises have gone up and down.

One of the most typical examples is Yixian ecommerce (the parent company of perfect Diary), which listed on the New York Stock Exchange on November 19, 2020, with a market capitalization of more than $16 billion at its peak and now hovering around more than $500 million. Yixian e-commerce continues to lose money, mainly because the proportion of sales and marketing expenses has been high. Even after the adjustment, sales and marketing expenses accounted for 60.0 per cent of total net income in the first quarter of this year (67.9 per cent in the same period last year), compared with 3.2 per cent of total net income.

Another representative of new consumption, Hua Xizi, has recently fallen into the "Li Jiaqi and 79 yuan eyebrow pen incident". Online spread that Li Jiaqi brought goods with a commission of up to 80% of sales. Hua Xizi responded that the proportion of cooperative rebates belongs to the industry average. I checked with a number of institutions with business flow, and the industry average is about 80%. Some institutions said that whether it is operating traffic (including various forms of brushing) or live streaming goods, the main purpose is to create a "head effect." In order to obtain high attention and shape consumer awareness. However, the cost of traffic continues to rise, and the cost of maintaining traffic remains high, which is easy to be forgotten once it is stopped.

There is nothing wrong with technological advances and changes in consumers that make it possible to redo consumer goods. What is wrong is that the style of play that does not pay attention to research and development, supply chain and brand building, eager for quick success and over-reliance on traffic exposure, has become unsustainable.

If you want to go through the cycle, you still have to return to the power of product, channel and brand. Time is a mountain that no one can get around.

Lu Xiuqiong, a global expert partner at Bain, said: "at present, there are two major trends in Chinese consumption: one is the return of new consumption and a new start-up, typically a strong offline attack in the forest of vitality; and the other is the rejuvenation of old consumption and the second time of starting a business. Typical is the strong growth of white elephant Chinese noodles' beyond gravity." the success rate of the second start-up of the old consumer enterprises is very low, but the white elephant has achieved great success in its innovation. "

Xie Weishan, chairman of Shanghai Junzhi Consulting, said: "White Elephant Chinese Noodle doubled its income last year, and half of the increment in the industry comes from White Elephant. This year, White Elephant's monthly sales have exceeded 1 billion yuan, making it the first instant noodle in the network. Behind the White Elephant phenomenon is a 26-year-old company that has been ploughing the land, cherishing big dreams, accumulating accumulated strength, and paying great attention to its products beyond imagination."

White Elephant is a Henan enterprise. Henan, referred to as "Yu" for short, is interpreted as "holding an elephant and going to the world" in Daojing, and the same is true of white elephant Chinese noodles, which has been sold to 66 countries and regions. In the past few days, the White Elephant has successively signed contracts with the Chinese women's volleyball team and the Chinese women's basketball team, and became the official partner of the Chinese women's football team in July this year, signing all the women's "three big balls", from "fighting the economy" to "moistening the society." have fully demonstrated the responsibility and responsibility of the white elephant, and gained a lot of points on the Internet.

In the serious instant noodle industry, why did the once unknown white elephant rise to become a national brand? What reference does the White Elephant Road have to revitalize consumption?

Stand on one's feet and live in a moral way

White Elephant was founded in 1997, formerly a loss-making enterprise, covering an area of 4 mu, losing more than 10 million yuan in successive years. Yao Zhongliang, who was born as a soldier and was a cadre of the grain department at that time, was ordered to recruit 30 college graduates to ride tricycles to sell along the street after two months of closed training. Relying on this "44 million" spirit of "traversing thousands of mountains and rivers, going through thousands of hardships, saying thousands of words, and sending white elephant products to thousands of households", the enterprise has come out of the crisis.

If you bite the root of the vegetable, you can do everything. "440,000" has since taken root in the white elephant.

Xie Weishan said: "the white elephant really cares about quality." product-oriented, stand and live. "

Lu Xiuqiong said: "the DNA of the white elephant is the word 'real'. The white elephant is strict in quality control and always adheres to the'44 million'. The growth in the past two years is a well-deserved blessing."

The product power of white elephant is a collection of many factors. In terms of quality, it is strict selection of real materials and strict quality management. In terms of taste, it is mainly manifested in striving to restore the classic authentic taste in various regions of China, working with famous chefs around to develop secret recipes for Baiwei Chinese noodles, combining traditional authentic cooking techniques such as "awakening and slow boil" with modern production technology.

It is better to eat without meat than to eat without soup. As early as 2003, the White Elephant used big bone soup as the material bag. When many technicians who had just come to work for the White Elephant saw the broth boiled for the first time, they "unexpectedly used a full pot of meat." it was only then that they believed that the soup of the White Elephant was not a "reference" picture on the bag, but a taste that could really be drunk. In order to launch the first new instant noodle product of bone soup, the research and development personnel of White Elephant found dozens of authentic local soups in 26 cities across the country, such as Guangdong Old Fire Soup, Jiangxi Wacan Tang, Hubei Chicken Soup, Xinyang Gushi Chicken Soup, and so on. And in-depth cooperation with national culinary masters and local celebrity chefs of the China Cuisine Association to achieve a breakthrough in the bone soup category.

In 2013, the White Elephant "Big Bone Noodle" technology upgraded to accurately control the fragmentation of raw materials, improve the protein dissolution rate, and maximize the nutritional value of bone soup, from "white water instant noodles" to "bone soup instant noodles", opening a new chapter in the industry. In 2018, on the basis of years of accumulation, the White Elephant launched a series of delicious Chinese high soup noodle soup products, selecting fresh ingredients such as high-quality pig bones, beef bones, chicken racks and chicken meat, and reengraving "family stew technology". After 6 hours of slow boiling and 6 processes, the soup was extracted many times, and finally condensed into pig bone stock, chicken bone stock, beef bone stock and other soup packages, creating a "6-hour slow-boil soup". The standard of good instant noodles instead of noodles and sauces.

Good products can talk. White Elephant's "ten thousand years buckwheat" is very popular among young people because of its non-fried, low-fat, whole-grain and low-calorie. Buckwheat is nutritious and contains medicinal ingredients, but because there is no gluten, noodles are fragile and fragile. In order to make 100% buckwheat noodles, White Elephant's R & D team spent more than 1000 days and nights trying and making mistakes, overcoming technical problems, and finally succeeded in R & D in 2019, filling the gap in the whole grain noodle industry.

White Elephant firmly believes that "R & D is the source of food safety". Over the years, there has been "no upper limit" on the funds and resources invested in product research and development, and R & D teams travel all over the world every year, collecting delicacies from all over the world and looking for good raw materials and good craftsmanship. As of June this year, White Elephant has more than 90 international first-class instant noodle production lines, 170 valid patents, and more than 60 improved production processes such as independent research and development.

Because of its solid foundation, when the March 15 party last year exposed some of the food safety problems of Laotan sauerkraut, the white elephant was magnanimous and quickly made a response that "no cooperation, rest assured to eat, and the body is not afraid of the shadow." In addition, its long-term donation to social welfare and other charitable acts have been rediscovered and are very popular with consumers, even buying white elephant instant noodles out of stock in the studio.

| A few days ago, the table tennis women's singles champion Mao Classic of the Paralympic Games praised the White Elephant on the social platform because he paid 10,000 yuan to each Chinese athlete participating in the Hangzhou Asian Paralympic Games and said, "in the future, only white elephants will be eaten in instant noodles!" .

Innovation is born, all things are born

Lu Xiuqiong uses the framework of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to analyze the white elephant phenomenon.

The first is division. Is to adhere to the "real" this DNA, remove all kinds of external temptation and interference, wholeheartedly research and "reproduce" the Chinese flavor. When entering the post of the White Elephant, it is necessary to take traditional culture courses such as the Doctrine of the mean and the moral Classics, which is very rare in the enterprise, which also shows that the White Elephant has taken root to the cultural level and is deeply rooted.

The second is addition and subtraction. Addition is to adjust the product structure, to the middle and high end; subtraction is to focus the product, create a large single item, and reduce too much SKU. White Elephant's product innovation is not stacked, but really goes to the hearts of consumers and creates surprises for consumers. Soup good to drink old hen soup noodles, spicy crayfish noodles, street crab roe noodles and other products are popular.

There is a huge base of spicy people in China, with more than 650 million who can eat or like spicy food. White Elephant has walked out of a "hot and hot" route after its "spicy culture". Its warm and unrestrained positioning makes "Generation Z" quickly become a "fast food player". IP "Spice Jiaozi", a "wonderful noodle shop" designed with hand-drawn cartoons, and cross-border interaction with brands such as Noble Bird, ChinaJoy, Weilong spicy gluten, Hisense, Meido, Arena of Valor, as well as regional spicy cuisine such as Nanchang mixed noodles, Xinjiang Fried rice noodles, Chongqing noodles, etc. This series of combinations makes "Da Laijiao" blend with young diners and become one of the brands that can best "play" with young people.

Data show that from 2019 to 2021 alone, White Elephant has completed more than 80 new product research and development, and the product matrix spans more than 10 categories, such as instant noodles, hanging noodles, fresh noodles, frozen food, noodles, flour and so on. In 2020, products such as white elephant sun-dried noodles and buckwheat noodles won four awards at the 20th China convenience Food Conference.

Finally, there is multiplication. Is to seize the opportunity to highlight the brand proposition.

Compared with new consumer companies, White Elephant is an old company, but its performance on major e-commerce platforms and social media is very bright. With positive energy and good quality circle fans many netizens, many big V also have for the white elephant "power generation".

In 2022, in order to strengthen the interaction with consumers, White Elephant launched an immersive theme store called "instant noodle factory" offline, which toured dozens of cities. There are 10 zones in the store, such as wind washing room, staff changing room, noodle making promenade, soup tasting and boiling room, white elephant history museum, instant noodle popular science station, and so on. Visitors can directly feel the strict eliminate virus and changing process when the front-line employees enter the production line. You can also see how a wheat can be made into noodles step by step through noodles, Calendering, shredding, dehydration, cooking, cooling and other processes, as well as DIY its own exclusive Chinese noodles.

The reason why white elephants continue to innovate is inseparable from the rapid changes in the market. Instant noodles are rigid demand food, and the biggest application scenario is mobile and portable, but after the popularity of high-speed rail, the time to arrive at the destination is reduced, and the demand for instant noodles on the train weakens. At the same time, convenience food began to enter the family scene, the pain point of small families is that they do not have time to cook or do not like to cook, and the demand for convenience food is increasing rapidly. The white elephant added real crab roe and crab legs to the noodles mixed with crab roe, and added popular hot pot ingredients in the research and development of hot pot noodles, all in order to break the mindset that "instant noodles is to brew quickly." let consumers eat a simple and nutritious delicious Chinese noodles.

By actively integrating social resources and opening up to the society, White Elephant has already developed from an initial factory-type enterprise to today's platform-based innovative enterprise. In the past, it took nine months to go from a concept to the landing of research and development, and it took about a year and a half to become a product or shop. Nowadays, as long as there are good R & D ideas, from concept to product launch trial sale, it can be done in one month at the earliest.

Conclusion

In Lu Xiuqiong's view, the most valuable thing for white elephants to learn from is to grasp "change or not to change".

What remains unchanged is the "obsession" of the white elephant in making a bowl of noodles for the Chinese and eating Chinese flavor. The change is to make the strategy clearer, the organization more sensitive, the product structure more representative of the future, the way of communication more vivid, and so on. In order to stay close to the forefront of the food industry, White Elephant has set up a research institute in Japan and an innovation center in Shanghai.

"what I admire most is the feelings of Boss Yao. He really believes in his goals, is willing to learn, change and try, and has the confidence to win in the competition. The old enterprise can be reshaped, and the key lies in whether the entrepreneur himself has a strong momentum to start a second business." Lu Xiuqiong said.

Xie Weishan said: "Mr. Yao Zhongliang is diligent beyond imagination. He works with young people in his twenties and thirties and doesn't look tired. He is energetic and has few holidays. He embodies a high-intensity entrepreneurial spirit, which comes from his grand dreams and plans, and his ultimate goal is to be one of the leaders of the food industry like Nestl é."

It is easier to create momentum than to create things. Creation must first create people and culture. White Elephant is an enterprise that puts man-making and creation before creating momentum. Its smile is therefore more lasting.

Follow the consumer instead of following the fashion. Value is more important than valuation, retention is more important than flow. Believe what you believe, love what you love, do the right thing, do valuable innovation, one day will usher in the dawn, shine.

This is the story of White Elephant Chinese noodles, and it is also the long-term vitality and resilience that Chinese consumer enterprises can travel through the cycle.

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