Recently, Yang Yinfen, the new chairman of BESTORE, ignited the first fire after taking office: price reduction and people-friendly route. In an open letter to all employees, he wrote that BESTORE is facing the most difficult challenge since its establishment, not only the problem of living hard, but the problem of whether to survive, if it does not change, it is really possible to lose the opportunity to be at the poker table.
Subsequently, a reporter interviewed BESTORE, and its staff said that the store was selling more than 300 top-notch products, and the average price of members was reduced by 22%, and the highest price was reduced by 45%. BESTORE started to cut prices sharply, and as soon as the news came out, it quickly attracted widespread attention, and they discussed the failure of BESTORE's high-end strategy.
Therefore, some people have pointed to the strategic positioning consulting industry and the positioning theory. As we all know, BESTORE established the positioning of "high-end snacks" in 2019, thus starting a comprehensive high-end strategic upgrade. We can see the advertising slogan of BESTORE in the advertisement: BESTORE, high-end snacks, leading the national sales for three consecutive years.
People in the business and consulting circles who have studied the "Positioning" series can basically see that the publicity method of BESTORE is derived from the theory of positioning. However, seeing the failure of BESTORE's high-end, it has aroused heated discussions in the business and consulting circles, is Traut's position theory outdated?Why is there another case of a company that has failed to apply positioning theory?
In response to this topic, we consulted Mr. Wang Bo, the founder of Dongji Positioning, and hoped to give an answer from the perspective of industry professionals in the strategic positioning consulting industry. He has worked in Trout for many years, and Mr. Wang Bo, the founder of Dongji Positioning, has deeply studied Trout's position theory and strategic thinking in the past 20 years, and has been focusing on helping Chinese enterprises build a strong national brand with correct positioning.
Mr. Wang Bo said that BESTORE is positioned at the high-end, which is essentially a wrong strategic choice, and we are not optimistic about it as early as 2019 when this high-end positioning was just launched. The reason is that snacks are widely and popular consumer goods, although there are also high-end consumer demand, but they are not mainstream.
As long as you observe a little, you can find that the main buying groups of the snack track are mainly young people, including school students, urban workers and young people who have just joined the workforce. These consumer groups can be said to be the most sensitive group in China's consumer market.
Therefore, from the perspective of communication, BESTORE is positioned at the high-end, and it strongly demonstrates its high-end positioning in large-scale advertising, which is equivalent to actively rejecting these main buyers of snacks and giving up its leading position in the industry. As soon as they hear about high-end, a large number of ** sensitive users, they are reluctant or afraid to enter the store, which is destined to lead to a decline in traffic.
In addition, from the perspective of competition, as a leading comprehensive snack brand in China, BESTORE is basically at the leading level of China's snack industry in terms of brand awareness, overall revenue scale, channel integration capabilities, and first-class chain capabilities. In terms of strategic layout, BESTORE should seize the biggest strategic opportunity in the snack industry and try to dominate the entire snack industry.
This means that BESTORE should strategically grasp the main contradictions in the consumption of the snack industry, grasp the most important consumer groups in the snack industry, and include a wider range of consumer needs, rather than only positioning and being limited to the high-end market. Positioned in high-end snacks, it is destined to discard a large number of snack buyers, which is destined to hinder the growth of revenue scale and the rise of market position.
From a comprehensive analysis, BESTORE's high-end positioning is a typical mispositioning, which does not match the competitiveness foundation and strategic development goals of the enterprise, nor does it match the demand characteristics of the snack industry. It is not surprising that BESTORE has not developed well in recent years, and has even declined.
However, the failure of BESTORE's high-end positioning, should it be blamed by positioning theory?Does it mean that the theory of positioning is invalid and outdated?
Mr. Wang Bo said that if there is an error in the positioning of BESTORE and the positioning of other positioning cases, it is said that the positioning theory is invalid and outdated, and this assertion is definitely incorrect. Trout's position theory has spanned half a century since it was put forward in 1969, and it is still timeless, and the truth of its core strategic principles has been proved by the market practice of a large number of enterprises around the world, and it is also widely recognized and respected by entrepreneurs in China, which is an objective fact.
Of course, it cannot be denied that in recent years, the strategic positioning consulting industry has indeed been controversial in the business and consulting circles, including experts from other theoretical schools often attack positioning theory. However, just when the positioning theory was controversial, in 2023, Huawei Mate60 was born, and Yu Chengdong's sentence of "far ahead" once again detonated the whole network and became the most influential propaganda slogan in 2023.
We can all see that the propaganda slogan "far ahead" that Yu Chengdong often shouts is exactly the position of a leader that Traut's position theory has always emphasized. Those who are familiar with the positioning consulting industry know that the national sales are far ahead, and the leading brand of a certain category is a common positioning method in the positioning consulting industry.
Including in the early years, when finalizing the strategic development goals for Huawei's mobile phone business, Yu Chengdong also said, "No one in the world remembers the second, everyone remembers the first." The highest peak in the world is Mount Everest, what is the second highest peak?A lot of people can't answer. If you want to have a future, you must be consumer-oriented and high-end." These are the classic guiding principles in positioning theory, which shows that Yu Chengdong is well versed in the essence of positioning wisdom.
It can be seen that Huawei, as the most successful high-tech enterprise in China and even in the world, represents the peak of human business civilization, and its strong rise and brand building still shines with the strategic wisdom of positioning theory. The positioning theory is not outdated, not only has it not become invalid, but still plays an important strategic role in the brand building process of Chinese enterprises.
However, if the positioning theory is still very valid, why is there still a case of mispositioning such as BESTORE?Including many people in the business community know that in recent years, there have been a large number of negative cases using positioning theory, BESTORE, Three Squirrels, etc. are just the tip of the iceberg in these negative cases, and there are a large number of negative cases because the scale of the enterprise is not very large, not a public listed company, so it has not received widespread attention from the business community. This can't help but make people ask, since the positioning theory has not failed, why are there negative word-of-mouth cases in batches?Mr. Wang Bo pointed out that this should be analyzed from the development trend of the positioning consulting industry.
In recent years, many strategic positioning consulting institutions, in order to expand the scale of project fees, have begun to chase to meet more consulting needs of enterprises, provide a large number of other services, and no longer focus on establishing the correct positioning for enterprises, resulting in serious problems in the definition of positioning and professionalism, which is the root cause of the emergence of negative cases in batches.
These strategic positioning consulting institutions either increase in-depth landing services at the operational level, or increase category innovation services at the product level, and so on. In short, instead of focusing on establishing the right positioning for the company, a lot of time and energy is focused on the operational, tactical and management aspects of the enterprise.
Differentiated positioning is the core of enterprise strategy, determines all aspects of enterprise operation, and plays a decisive and long-term impact on the development of enterprises. Moreover, defining the correct positioning is a highly professional work, which has extremely high requirements for the concentration and professionalism of the positioning consulting agency. Jack Trout, the father of positioning, has dedicated his life to establishing the right positioning for companies around the world, and has served many classic cases such as IBM, Southwest Airlines, Burger King, etc.
Once the positioning consulting agency adds other consulting services and no longer focuses on establishing positioning, it is destined to lead to a lack of focus and professionalism, and only formalize a positioning for the enterprise, which is destined to lead to a large number of mispositioning cases. Therefore, it is not that there is a problem with the positioning method of "leading sales in the country", nor is there a problem with the positioning theory itself, nor is it that the positioning theory is outdated, but the problem is the correct understanding and correct application of positioning knowledge by the consulting community and the business community, and the problem is the awe and concentration of the consulting community and the business community on strategic positioning.
Mr. Wang Bo reminded the business community that they should also learn to analyze and judge the correctness of positioning, not that enterprises shouted a sentence of "sales leading" in advertising, which means that they have a correct positioning;It does not mean that the company uses positioning theory in the process of strategy formulation, which means that it will develop a correct positioning;It does not mean that the enterprise has a well-known strategic positioning consulting agency in the service, which means that it will get a correct positioning.
Huawei's mobile phone is positioned as a "high-end independent R&D brand", Yu Chengdong shouted "core technology is far ahead" through the press conference, thus achieving great success, including Fotile kitchen appliances and other brands have also achieved rapid development through the "high-end leading" positioning, but it does not mean that the "high-end leading" positioning is applicable to all other Chinese companies, such as BESTORE's "high-end snacks" positioning is obviously not suitable.
How to position it correctly?Mr. Wang Bo emphasized that we must seek truth from facts in positioning, attach great importance to the investigation and research of the market line, analyze specific problems, and flexibly use positioning theory in combination with the actual market of enterprises, and avoid blindly copying and copying. Moreover, what is the correct positioning, in the end, must be tested by the market, practice is the only criterion for testing the truth and positioning.
At present, China's major industries have entered the era of great competition, homogenization and involution are extremely serious, and with the strong rise of China, the head Chinese enterprises in major industries will generally usher in the era of 100 billion yuan, and will generally open the global layout. All this means that Chinese enterprises will have higher and higher requirements for the accuracy of strategic positioning, in order to break the increasingly homogeneous competition and effectively cope with more fierce global competition.
Against this backdrop, Trout's positional theory, a classic business strategy theory spanning half a century, is destined to have a promising future and help Chinese enterprises shine in the global market. We call on more strategic positioning consulting institutions to return to focus on the correct positioning, abide by the professionalism of strategic positioning, and maintain the focus and awe of strategic positioning, so as to help more Chinese enterprises establish the correct positioning and build more national brands like Huawei that Chinese people are proud of.