It is estimated that many people are deeply puzzled, why did Zong Qinghou die, and Zhong Sui and Nongfu Spring inexplicably became "everyone shouting and beating"? I have to admire those unexplained emotional catharsis on the Internet, of course, it cannot be ruled out that there is some kind of force behind it. Of course, there are also voices of reason, and there are articles saying that Zhong Sui is not a demon, and Zong Qinghou is not a god.
In the sound of beating Nongfu Spring, the main spearhead of the surging ** is pointed at "Zhong Sui was a distributor of Wahaha at the time, and was fired by Wahaha for rushing goods", "Zhong Sui held a press conference to announce that he would no longer produce pure water, and backstabbed Wahaha's pure water", "Zhong Sui's son is an American citizen" and so on. Under the rhythm of these **, many people even "sweared" that they would only drink Wahaha in the future and no longer drink Nongfu Spring.
What is inexplicable is precisely that the excitement on the Internet seems to be "avenging" the deceased Zong Qinghou, but over the years, Wahaha and Nongfu Spring have been safe and sound, not to mention that when Zong Qinghou was alive, I and Zhong Sui had no disagreement, and netizens put the old things of Chen Sesame and Rotten Grain decades ago - and how true these old things are are also different opinions, and pick up the "Autumn Queen's Accounting", and put Zong Qinghou on the altar, and the so-called decades agoThe "disloyalists" pulled out the criticism, it seems that the death of the elder of the sect was caused by Nongfu Spring, so noisy and crazy, it is really incomprehensible.
The strength of this wave of public opinion has led to the fact that since February 28, Nongfu Spring's official sales have been sold for 5 consecutive days, which has fallen by more than 90% compared with the daily sales before the storm. On March 3, the single-day sales were only 50,000 yuan, while the previous single-day sales on February 27 exceeded 1 million yuan. Under the surging saliva, Nongfu Spring's e-commerce live broadcast room was even scolded to stop broadcasting.
On November 4, 2021, Forbes released the 2021 Chinese mainland rich list, and Zhong Sui topped the list for the first time with a wealth of 65.9 billion US dollars (450 billion yuan), until this year, for three consecutive years, Zhong Sui's position as China's richest man has not been shaken.
According to China Entrepreneur Magazine, Zhong almost never mixes circles. For nearly ten years, Zhong has almost disappeared from the public eye because of the principle of "doing things in a high-profile manner and being a low-key person". Nongfu Spring insiders said that Zhong has not been interviewed for many years, and he rarely attends even public events. Even in 2020, when the two companies he controlled, Wantai Biotechnology and Nongfu Spring, were listed separately, the outside world mentioned Zhong Sui's name, and many people said they were unfamiliar with it and even mispronounced it.
And this time, the richest man in China, who is as stable as Mount Tai, actually issued a response in person, which shows that he is really anxious.
In response to the unwarranted accusations on the Internet, Zhong's response mainly explained three points:
First, the "first pot of gold" for Zhong Sui came from Wahaha. Zhong said that the cloth business was the first pot of gold he earned from his business, and it had nothing to do with Wahaha. He also made it clear: "I have never received a salary in Wahaha, let alone been fired for rushing goods." ”
Second, the focus of the accusation, Zhong Sui's "disgraceful" experience in Wahaha, as a distributor, was fired for "cross-selling". Zhong said that this is not true. This statement is completely false.
Many years later, at a sales meeting of Nongfu Spring, Zhong joked: Wahaha (children's nutrition oral liquid) that we didn't sell in Hainan back then is estimated to have been sold to Guangdong, and if it is put now, it will be recognized as a rush to the goods. It is precisely because of this unintentional joke that Zhong Sui led to this "fatal" rumor.
The third point is the dispute between "natural water and pure water". The actual competitive relationship has also become the main evidence for the outside world to speculate that Zong Qinghou and Zhong Sui are "evil". After 2000, the dispute between natural water and pure water was boiling, and Wahaha and Nongfu Spring clarified their respective positions and product propositions in the dispute, and both achieved certain results in the follow-up. "After that, we had lawsuits against each other, but in the end, Elder Zong and I shook hands and made peace in the presence of the main leaders of Hangzhou at that time. ”
Although the insistence on the product is different, Zhong has also repeatedly emphasized his respect for Zong Qinghou's entrepreneurial spirit, "My respect for Zong Lao's entrepreneurial spirit has never wavered. I have always said on various occasions that Zong Lao is a representative of entrepreneurs that I respect. ”
Zhong's response, judging from public relations skills, does not get a full score.
First of all, most of the accusations on the Internet do not point to Nongfu Spring's "hard injury", but to the "moral character" of Zhong Sui himself, and such a question itself cannot withstand rigorous consideration.
Zhong also said in the article that in the early stage of the development of the market economy, all kinds of management were very extensive, and the modern sales concepts of channel management and rushing goods were impossible to talk about at that time. It is ironic to look at the problems of the past from the perspective of the present.
Second, the dispute between "natural water and pure water", and even the mutual litigation between Nongfu Spring and Wahaha, is a business method for competing in the market of similar products, and there is no clear right and wrong, good and evil.
Third, in this Internet trend, it is more of an "emotional catharsis", and the more important point may be based on the remarks that "Zhong's family is American", but it is difficult for the outside world to know whether Zhong Zhang's son, or even Zhong's son, is an American citizen.
All in all, the author thinks that to these inexplicable accusations, Zhong Sui personally issued a response, which to a certain extent boosted ** and further aroused heated discussions and attention. The so-called innocent husband is guilty, and China's richest man has always been easy to be put on the fire.
In the Chinese business community, it is estimated that there are very few people whose marketing level can surpass Zhong's. Zhong is definitely a marketing master in the field of FMCG, but in terms of classic advertising slogans such as "Nongfu Spring is a little sweet" and "We don't produce water, we are just nature's porters", it has been widely seen that the probability of success of Zhong's new products is more than 80%.
According to the positioning theory, cognition is fact, and what kind of USP is given to the product determines how consumers recognize and associate the product, which directly affects consumers' choices. Zhong gave Nongfu Spring the recognition of "natural mineral water", which made Nongfu Spring very cleverly associated with health, so as to stand out from a large number of competitors such as Wahaha, Robust, Master Kong, Cestbon and so on, which can be described as unique.
Not only Nongfu Spring, Zhong Sui has also made a lot of popular products, many people may not even know that these famous popular models are the same as Nongfu Spring, these brands include "Duoer", "Qingzui", "Mother Cow**" and "Happy Growth" and so on.
Born in 1954, in order to get rid of the fate of being a cement worker, he began to force himself to study, and after losing to Sun Shan in the college entrance examination twice, he seized the opportunity to go to the University of Power and finally forced himself out of a diploma. With this stepping stone, Zhong is determined to become a literary and artistic youth. During his five years as a reporter at Zhejiang**, he interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs.
He then left the newspaper to set out an ambitious career and start the Pacific Post, but lost all his money.
The spring breeze of reform is blowing all over the motherland, and the great waves of the economy are surging. Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha, became the first person to rush into the cusp, after the failure of Zhong Sui to grow shiitake mushrooms, he remembered the entrepreneur Zong Qinghou who had interviewed, in 1991, Zhong Sui visited Zong Qinghou, when Zhong Sui did not become the general distributor of Wahaha oral liquid in Hainan and Guangxi provinces, it seems that Zhong Sui has become impossible to verify after Zhong Sui denied it.
In October 1993, Zhong Sui got inspiration from the health soup and established Yangshengtang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. in Hainan It is said that the "Yangshengtang Turtle and Turtle Pill" launched by Hainan Yangshengtang at that time was "made of natural turtle and turtle as raw materials, and is compatible according to the traditional theory of traditional Chinese medicine. Using modern ultra-low temperature freezing technology, the whole turtle and turtle are brittle into fine powder at minus 196 degrees Celsius".
In the following 20 years, Yangshengtang successively launched a large number of FMCG brands such as "Nongfu Spring". Planner Li Guangdou once commented on CCTV's "Dialogue" program: "Zhong Sui is the most 'child-bearing' boss among Chinese entrepreneurs. ”
In 2020, Nongfu Spring ended its long-distance A-share IPO run, submitted an application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 29, and began trading on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 8. Zhong Sui owns Nongfu Spring 844128% of the shares, its net worth of Nongfu Spring alone reached 203.1 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 180 billion yuan).
In addition to Nongfu Spring, Zhong Sui also has another huge industry - Wantai Biotechnology, which will land on the A-share market in 2020. According to the company's investigation data, the controlling shareholder of Wantai Biotech is Yangshengtang, holding 56 shares98%。Among them, Zhong Sui holds 100% of Yangshengtang, and also directly holds 18 of the total share capital of Wantai Biotechnology17%。Zhong's shareholding in Wantai Biotech is as high as 7515%。
Before 1998, the sales volume of pure water accounted for more than 90% of the drinking water industry, of which Robust and Wahaha were the first echelon of the industry, and Robust's market share reached more than 30% through the promotion of "every drop of water has been purified by 27 layers". Nongfu Spring proposed the marketing concept of natural water. In terms of publicity, Nongfu Spring proposed for the first time that "we do not produce water, we are just the porters of nature".
In April 1999, Zhong publicly proposed that "drinking pure water for a long time is not good for the human body". It is a high-profile claim that Nongfu Spring no longer produces pure water, but all natural water. directly pointed the finger at Wahaha and Robust, which produced pure water at that time, and directly triggered a lawsuit that followed.
With its unique positioning and extremely accurate marketing, Nongfu Spring has quickly become the No. 1 brand in the field of packaged water, and ranks among the top three in the industry with Wahaha and Master Kong. In 2000, the former leader Robust was acquired by Danone and withdrew from the drinking water industry.
Nowadays, Wahaha seems to be much inferior to Nongfu Spring in terms of the entire product ecology. According to public data, in 2022, Nongfu Spring's market share will reach 265%, China Resources C'estbon ranked second, with a share of 213%。After.
The third and fourth are Master Kong and Wahaha, with market shares respectively. 9%。
Compared with a single mainstream product, the market share of Wahaha drinking water is not as good as that of Nongfu Spring. In addition, Wahaha's AD calcium milk, nutrition express, and eight-treasure porridge products, the entire consumer experience and market perception have been deeply aged. In 2004, Nongfu Spring launched the "Scream" series of functional drinks, with innovative cap design and good taste, so that "Scream" has a place in the functional drink market; In 2008, Nongfu Spring launched "water-soluble C100" lemon juice drink, becoming the first brand in the field of vitamin C beverages. In recent years, NFC juice, which occupies the refrigerator cabinet of convenience stores, has become the standard for the majority of white-collar workers, and Oriental tree tea and tea are all innovative products of Nongfu Spring, and the market share is far ahead.
Statistics show that China's drinking water market is about 65 billion yuan, and mineral water is about 10 billion to 12 billion yuan, which is not very high. However, with consumers' attention to health, since 2019, China's mineral water industry has entered a period of rapid growth, becoming the highest-growing category of drinking water, which is also the core reason why more and more domestic companies are increasing their natural mineral water track.
Nongfu Spring's business mainly includes packaged drinking water, tea drinks, functional drinks, and fruit juice drinks, of which packaged drinking water is its mainstay, but packaged drinking water has begun to weaken in the past two years, and the growth rate of packaged drinking water in 2021 will be 2214%, and in 2022 it fell to 764%, compared to 117%。
From the essence point of view, the product essence and consumer experience of each brand of drinking water are very different, and whether they can win in the end and who can become the first depends on marketing. Therefore, there are latecomers such as Evergrande Ice Spring, Baisui Mountain and other brands with more high-end positioning, the so-called "water aristocracy", and the "Liangbai Kai" that has found another way, but these brands always seem to be difficult to shake the "natural mineral water" cognition brought by Nongfu Spring in terms of marketing positioning.
It is difficult to study and test whether the marketing propaganda is true or false, and how good it is. But often that kind of extremely shrewd marketing always carries with it some degree of "original sin of fraud". For example, the predecessor of Nongfu Spring was the Yangshengtang Turtle and Turtle Pill, which has long since disappeared in the dust of history. If it had worked, it wouldn't have gone away now. Of course, if we talk about the sins of those so-called health care products many years ago, not only Nongfu Spring, but also Wahaha's children's nutrition solution is actually a health care product with a certain effect.